


Le Petit Cochon

by WendigoDreaming



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Bittersweet Ending, M/M, Mentions of Character Death, Post Season 2, Someone Help Will Graham, TW unstable and sad Will Graham, alcoholic (maybe) Will, and sadness, there will be smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-02-03 17:42:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1753265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WendigoDreaming/pseuds/WendigoDreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Graham had spent three years trying to build a new life in the Florida sun with his dogs and new fiancée. Yet no matter how sturdy he tried to build it, all it took was one package to have it come crumbling down around him. After all, Hannibal was supposed to be his foundation.</p><p>Post Season 2 AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Peaches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hannigramcracker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannigramcracker/gifts).



Molly always smelt like peaches. That was the first thing Will had noticed about her when he she had tapped him on the shoulder as if he hadn’t been watching her and asked, breath smelling like sun-ripened peaches, if he could “take a look at my motor… its sputtering and making this god awful noise”. She had jumped out of her boat before it even hit the dock, wading around in the sand and staining the hem of her blue dress with salt without a care. Molly had tied the boat up and strolled up the crooked decks of the Sugarloaf Marina and right into Will’s life.

So it made sense that when they had moved in together in a ram shackled house that as Will enjoyed his black coffee while reading the paper that the room smelt of peaches not because of the bowl of peaches, but because Molly was nearby, reading over his shoulder.

“You know, I think for a wedding gift I’m going to get you a kindle with all the newspaper apps already preinstalled.” Molly said as she leaned in, burying her nose into the crook of Will’s neck and nosing against the harsh stubble. Brown waves that were not pinned back by one of her characteristic bows tumbled over his shoulder as he kept reading. “I can’t burn this stuff fast enough when you’re through with it. I feel like the newspapers are slowly taking over our house.”

With a small kiss she was off, curving around the island and back to the apple pancakes frying in the pan.

Will only smiled down at the newspaper in his fists, the wetness of the kiss drying and cooling at his neck. There was no way Molly could understand what Will was looking for with every flip of the page, every grainy crime scene photo, or local article about a three-legged therapy dog. He was looking for the pattern, for a few words that would un-do the fabric of a life in the three years since that time that Will had tried to stitch together for himself.

“Uhm, I know this is probably not the best thing to bring up so early in the morning,” Molly started as Will heard the sound of her lazily slapping the flipped pancake against the pan in order to somehow cook faster, “but you should really consider inviting Jack Crawford.”

“Molly…” Will said lowly as he folded the newspaper and stared at the white robe across her back.

“Hey, look, I get that you are all super secretive of your old double life to the point I feel like I’m marrying a CIA agent but… Will, baby, you can’t just forget about everyone up north.” Will watched as she plated the pancakes and then poured a generous amount of maple syrup and sprinkled some cinnamon on them like Will liked. The plate was slid over to him and when he reached for the fork, his hand was slapped at. 

“Ow.”

 “They would probably love to reconnect with you. Plus your side of the church is pretty well… empty.”

“Am I allowed to eat or did you make the pancakes simply to look at?” Will smiled crookedly and watched her face melt a little from forceful mother hen to a more demure expression.

“To eat. But if you keep giving me that attitude I may just feed the rest to the gang.” 

At their mention Will’s five remaining dogs lifted their heads in union from the dog beds to stare at their owners. Buster looks especially pleased by the prospect.

Will started to shovel the pancakes in, watching Molly out of the corner of his eyes as she knelt against the island to dig in. The robe wasn’t tight enough to fully hide her, and Will took some time between bites to watch the curve of her breasts shift with her every motion, peeking out between the lapels, warm and soft and so familiar.

“I just want to understand that side of you. You know that’s the reason why, right? There are so many facets of you I don’t understand. You’re so mysterious.” Molly wagged her own syrup-covered fork accusingly. 

“I thought you found my mysterious nature sexy. I thought it was one of my charms.” Will pinched the fork around the stem and brought it forward to give it a small lick, eyeing his fiancée as he did so. She blushed faintly, and really, he couldn’t help but feel a little proud by it.

“It is.” She said, quieter this time and full of the uncharacteristic shyness she got around Will when he played his cards just right. “But you know…”

 Will sighed. “Yeah, I know. I’ll think about it.”

But of course, he wouldn’t. If he thought about Jack, he was going to think about Hannibal, and if he thought about Hannibal… well… Will felt nauseous just thinking of it. That part of his life was separate on purpose. None of that darkness was going to cloud over sunny Florida. No creatures were going to lurk down their halls, gouging scratches down their wallpapered halls, or sit at the foot of their wedding bed. He didn’t want to keep needing a loaded shot gun leaning against their wardrobe just in case some deranged direwolf-wanna-be decided to break into their house and snap Molly’s small arms like twigs, sic’ed on them by his equally deranged therapist. 

No, not deranged. That wasn’t the right word.

Will placed his fork down, his stomach churning. Words were always impossible to find when it came to Hannibal. Always.

 If Molly noticed him not eating, she thankfully didn’t say anything. Instead she waltzed over to the living room for a moment and came back with a small box clutched protectively in her hands.

“Mm, what’s that?” Will said as she came back to their plates and slid it across the counter to Will without much fanfare.

“Dunno’, it came in the mail earlier this morning and has your name on it. I thought it was an early wedding gift but it was addressed to just you. I was hoping you’d know.” Molly slipped back around the counter and opened up their fridge that shuddered to life and flickered light over the near empty contents and a dozen oranges from the tree outback. 

Weird. He hadn’t ordered anything and certainly wasn’t expecting anything in the mail. Will turned the small package around in his hands. Honestly he wasn’t all that fond of surprises but for the sake of Molly’s curious stares peeking over her shoulder between rummages in the fridge, he caved. Will carefully sucked his butter knife clean of any maple syrup and then slid the edge under the taped sides of the pristine brown shipping box.

Once it was open he pushed back the black wrapping paper to find a smaller white box. “What is this, a matryoshka doll?” Will pulled it out and pushed all the extra transport away and then stared at the little white box with it’s raised, glossy paisley design and a black silk bow tied perfectly. It was too perfect, almost unreal.

Will lifted up the cream manilla tag with a white doily pattern in the corner and flipped it over to read the elegant scrawl. The moment his eyes made contact with the graceful fountain pen loops and flourishes his insides inverted. 

“Will? Baby, are you okay?” Molly pressed as all the colour drained from his face, but the noise turned to nothing but static as everything in the kitchen became tunnel vision, only the words in focus.

_“May everything come back together for you. — H"_  

_No. Please… no, don’t._

Will’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding as his eyes started to burn. As his hands un-did the bow and pulled back the small lid, he could see Abigail’s life blood staining the skin red and dying his nails pink for days in the ICU. The jagged scar running along his abdomen that Molly knew only as a scar from a car crash felt like someone—Hannibal—was digging the skinning knife deep into his belly and ripping open his stomach with the intent on spilling it’s lying contents onto the kitchen floor.

His hands shook as he pushed the lid aside. There, nestled in between black silk was one perfect white teacup.

 

_______________

 

 

Sweat beaded down the back of Will’s neck as the sweltering Florida morning sun beat down on him and the black garbage bags swollen with black banana peels, the week’s trash, and the shards of one smashed teacup.

He hauled the two bags along their excuse for a driveway and down to the mailbox shaped like a rooster (Molly’s idea, not his own). The smell of decay permeated the linings, and Will had to press the corner of his arm up against his nose to stop the scent from gagging him. Decay had never bothered him, and the smell of rotting food wasn’t normally something to sicken his stomach but it was more a reminder of the smells he’d dealt with during his time on the force. The smell of rotting bodies turning to mushrooms, or strung up on a totem pole, or worse yet the smell of formaldehyde preserving a sliced up Bev.

The smell of death reminded Will of Hannibal and Hannibal reminded him of everything horrible that had been in his life up until he’d met Molly, and Molly reminded him that Hannibal had sent the teacup… well it was all just a perpetuating cycle by that point.

“Fuck you and your teacup.” Will hissed, kicking at the garbage bag for good measure. The satisfying jingle of broken porcelain soothed some of his tension. He wanted to see it try and rearrange itself now. The garbage bag sagged and toppled over, spilling out some of its contents onto the hot pavement.

 “Fantastic.” Will said, deadpan. He crouched down as kids biked along the sidewalk and old retired couples hobbled hand in hand past the palm trees. It felt disgusting to fist up the garbage and shove it back in, and when he grabbed at a small shard of the teacup he held it in his hand, before grazing his thumb along the sharp point. 

Maybe he should buy a handgun and teach Molly how to shoot.

A small shiver wracked him as he stared down at the piece of white. Just like he’d urged Alana to do. Unbidden, painful images flooded Will of Alana’s concerned smile, of her brown waves not unlike Molly’s (it seemed he had a definite type), and the way she’d laid there in a pool of her own blood and he’d just left her alone. Jack, out of hospital before Will was, had told him there was nothing he could have done but it didn’t stop Will from having nightmares, on top of all the other nightmares, of Alana alone in the rain, shaking under his jacket as she died the one way she did not deserve to die: by herself.

Will hadn’t realized he was cutting himself until a bloom of red appeared on his finger and trailed down from the white shard to his wrist. “Shit.” He hissed, wiping it on his jeans and then tossing the rest of the trash away.

It wasn’t even eleven am and already he was getting a splitting migraine. Alana was on his conscious, Abigail too, sputtering and choking and looking like a small child as she died in his arms. She had called him “Daddy” in such a small, frightened voice. Whether she saw Hobbs in Will or if she really still believed that both he and Hannibal were still her closest things to a family, Will didn’t know… but it broke him. 

“Fuck you. Fuck you, FUCK YOU.” Will seethed out; shoving the garbage he’d just fixed all over with each rising curse, spilling the contents out across the road. The retired couple was staring. Great, now he was going to look like a lunatic to all his neighbours.

With a grunt Will stood up and stared down at the mess he’d made. The garbage men would deal with it, and if they complained Will would just blame it on raccoons. It had felt good to hurt _something_ , though nothing could compare to punching in those hollow cheeks or snapping the slender neck always wrapped by expensive collars and flamboyant ties. 

Will shook as he stood up. He would just go inside and grab the bourbon hidden in the closet and have a drink and then maybe his hands would stop shaking. Molly was at her dress shop, all southern smiles for her customers and offering sweet tea and shortbread cookies to the ladies’ kids and Will would be drunk by 12:30 if he timed it right. 

Turning away from the mess he’d created to go back inside and create a whole new mess… something, he couldn’t really even say what, caught his attention. He moved slowly, turning on his bare soles to glance down past his driveway and to the other side of the road. Past the meridian of parched palm trees, stood a man.

The man wasn’t anything out of the ordinary by himself. He was tanned like everyone else, sporting sunglasses and an open black polo shirt that no doubt had a little horse and rider on it. With khakis and dress shoes the man looked affluent and yet with the small dashes of grey in his blonde hair near his ears it seemed more earned than given. It was probably some business stiff coming to check out the dumpy houses to buy and then give to his botox’d wife for the ever trendy “house flipping”. They were going to turn this into an “up and comer” neighbourhood with frozen yogurt parlours and Starbucks if it killed them.

Will rolled his eyes and went to turn around and head back into the house when the man slowly lifted up his sunglasses to push them back into his ashen blond hair.

All he needed was one instantaneous look into those dark shark eyes and Will was back in that kitchen, shaking profusely as he bled out between his one hand while watching Abigail die between his other. And there was Hannibal, roused and raspy as he choked on emotions too raw and too personal for Will to handle standing over them, looking frightened and vulnerable as a child in his own micro expressions Will had studied and grown almost fond of.

And now here he was—standing right there across the meridian, healthy, tanned, well dressed, and all too real. His lips curled into a smile and before Will’s legs could give out or a scream could rip out of his throat, a garbage truck drove by blocking his view.

“No! _Nononono_.” Will sputtered out as the garbage man ignored Will’s crazed mutterings with his dirty headphones jammed into his ears and with his own set of problems that didn’t involve Will. 

Will pushed past the man, ignoring his pointed glares from the spilt bags to Will. When he moved to the back and fully into the stench Will reeled back from the rotting leavings of the retirement home a few blocks over on the garbage truck’s route.

Nothing was standing on the meridian anymore. Not Hannibal, not anyone.

Doubt seized Will. It was a hallucination, it had to be. Hannibal was supposed to become a wisp of a memory, a haunting spectral of Will’s conscious. That was how people healed, by letting memories fade.

But he had been Will’s rock and foundation and he had been the one memory that, thanks to the scar, he could never make un-physical. And there he had been, god damn it all he’d _seen him_. He was real…

And he knew where Will lived.

 

_______________

 

“You mended a crack in the ceiling paper with your diploma a few weeks ago during the hurricane, I saw that.” Molly passed a cup of lemon sweet tea to Will as he rocked on their patio swing. “If you missed your other life, what you used to do, I think you’d talk about it. You never do. You were open and calm and easy…I love that about you.”

Were, meaning past tense.

A silence passed between them punctuated only by the sounds of them sipping the sweating, icy tea and the grasshoppers chirping loudly in their overgrown backyard. Was Will supposed to say something now? He used to know if and when to apologize simply because Molly was blissfully simple to understand. No half-smiles or crooked grins, just Molly. But now everything felt unsteady and despite the small smile on her face, Will felt the sadness in her words, the undercurrents of something brewing.

“So, I don’t push or ask questions. I respect that… but Will when I get a call from Don saying you haven’t shown up for work at the marina and I come home to find you…. you know…” Her fist curled up and pressed against her lips, Molly’s soft brown eyes finding the frayed ends of the swing cushion more interesting.

“Stone-faced drunk and having pissed myself?” Will offered bitterly. She couldn’t even say what he’d done, how she’d had to drag him babbling through the house, shaking and peeing on himself like a god damn bourbon-soaked chihuahua.

Molly didn’t answer. Instead she stared out at their backyard that backed into a small ravine and past the small shed WIll had never got around to finishing. “You’d tell me though…” She finally said, turning to face Will, looking at him without the calm steadiness of a woman assured. “You’d tell me if there was something going on, right?”

Would he? Would he truly? No, not really. There would be no way to explain it all to Molly in a way she would understand. It wasn’t that Molly was stupid, she was incredibly bright it was just…. Will sighed and turned to her, resting his wet palm against her cheek.

How could Molly ever understand an entity like Hannibal? She knew darkness, sure, she had watched her ex-husband disintegrate in front of her eyes. Molly knew cancer and there wasn’t a more ruthless evil in her world, but cancer was evil, it stole life, it consumed bodies and left them as nothing but shells hooked up to IVs. Hannibal was not cancer; he was capable of such ruthless evil but also… Will winced at the memory of Hannibal submerging his hand into lukewarm water and tenderly cleaning the wounds on his knuckles, wrapping them and then bringing his hand up to his lips to kiss away the pain like a mother to a child. Hannibal was not cancer, he was capable of rebirth… of warmth.

“Molly…” Will breathed out, stroking his thumb along her freckled cheek.

No, Molly couldn’t—wouldn’t as far as Will was concerned, be introduced to the paradox that was Hannibal: of love and hate existing so interdependent, and yet filled with nuances she could never understand. Molly was sweet and simple and that was what Will loved around her, but she saw the world as such. Hannibal and his old life were incomprehensible. He didn’t want her to understand, he wanted her to stay convinced that the greatest evil in the world was the division of abnormal cells.

He didn’t say anything else and only leaned down to press a small kiss to her lips. And Molly relaxed and smiled under the kiss, returning it and cupping his cheeks with such pure, protective love that Will wanted to break again at the thought of her being smashed to the floor into a million pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Welcome to one of my first multi-chapter fics in a long time. This hasn't been beta'd so be sure to leave any feedback you have. I adore comments!
> 
> This was inspired by a prompt done by Hanni-Babe on tumblr. (Be sure to also say hello to me, "dweeby". Sorry, I'm too inept to post links.)
> 
> I also haven't read the books so I apologize if Molly isn't 100% accurate! Now.... onto the gay, dirty, muderhusband feels.


	2. Filth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will visits his own personal house of horrors and is faced with reimagining his past.

“And on your left you’ll see the very room where the grisly murder of Abigail Hobbs occurred. It is said Hannibal Lecter cut her throat the same way the Minnesota Shrike, Hobbs’ cannibalistic serial killer father, had previously attempted to end her life. It is rumoured that Abigail Hobbs was an accomplice in multiple, perhaps all, of her father’s murders and also consumed the victim’s flesh.” A couple of low murmurs sounded in front of Will and were followed by bright flashes that seared the negative of the room into his retinas. “Her cause of death was loss of blood from the wound in her carotid artery. Did you know the amount of blood loss from both her and Mr. Graham averaged the amount of blood found in a male golden retriever?”

The bug-eyed geriatrics and pimpled teenagers all tucked that useful bit of information in their skulls to recite to their folks back home. This wasn’t their reality, only a scary story to tell around a campfire. Hannibal the Cannibal was everyone’s monster now, not just Will’s own personal nightmare.

“Now on to the dining room, where we can see the place Hannibal the Cannibal enjoyed eating the flesh from his victims in haute cuisine. This way, and as a friendly reminder no flash photography; please turn your flashes off. Alright, this way.” The tour guide ushered the small crowd of tourists out from the kitchen and into the living room as Will hung back. His hands were stuffed into his pockets, the dark sunglasses pushed up the bridge of his nose. He could be recognized here, but then again the people in the tour weren’t looking for any of this grounded in reality.

Will stared out deadly at the kitchen. It had been years since he’d been back there, and coming back to find the house sold to some horror fanatic and turned into some cheap tourist attraction was… well sickening didn’t really cover how Will felt. God, a small side room had even been turned into a god damn gift shop complete with biographies written by psychology PhD students with educated guesses and not a speck of truth. The thought of the knick-knacks commodifying the worst night of his life made his stomach turn over.

Will reached out to touch the wooden box that housed the knifes, maybe the same ones for authenticity or maybe just new ones placed there for atmosphere. Beside the knives was a small glass box containing the curved skinning knife. The crowd of tourists had all crowded around it, breathing onto the plexiglas to get a look at _the_ knife that Hannibal used to gut him.

Now that knife he’d know anywhere.

The puckered and white scar stretching across his stomach twinged painfully, like a phantom of the knife could still be felt, first hooked in and then _dragged_ through his innards. Hannibal had caught a bit of small intestine but not enough to warrant removal. It was just enough to leak his most personal acidic innards over the bloody mess Hannibal had left behind. He wanted it to hurt, to cause damage and be everlasting but not fatal. Will hadn’t understood that until later when the doctors had told him he was lucky it hadn’t caused any lasting damage. As if all of this was pure luck.

Will tilted his head, pursing his lips as he moved in closer to stare at the sharp edge that had been cleaned of his blood and sharpened to a menacing point. He should just take the knife, really. It was more his property than it was the man who now owned the house and made money off Will’s misery. Maybe just tuck it in his jacket pocket and leave, then either toss it into a river or keep it hidden in the rickety floorboards his half built shed. One day when he had Hannibal in his hands again he’d drive it in-between his ribs as a thank you.

He’d pour every bit of pain into the cut, just as Hannibal had done. The way he’d held him, stroking his hair and soothing him as he used his own body to hold Will’s insides in…. Will would do the same. He’d hold Hannibal to him as the man sputtered to try and breathe. Will would bury his nose against the shell of the man’s ear and then they would be even, both having bared each other, let the other seen. ‘ _I see._ ’

Will shook his head. Well, he couldn’t say he had missed that. It had been a long time since he’d been in Hannibal’s headspace and as if he was burnt by a hot element, his fingers jumped away from the case.

“Sir, please don’t touch the artifacts. I can’t leave you unsupervised so please join the tour group.” The twenty something said, trying to gather all the authority he could. He was probably a psychology undergrad who already thought he could do the psychopath test on a person with just one look.

“Of course, sorry.” Will did his best to smile and then went into the dining room where the speech was under way. It was arranged a little differently than it had been, and Will tried to tune out the man as he talked about the various victims that “Hannibal the Cannibal” had eaten in that very room. The man spoke about the lavish parties and dinner get-togethers he would host and how Hannibal had forced so many innocent, respectable people to become complacent in his crimes.

The rest of the tour was much the same: recounting facts with various levels of accuracy, giving little tidbits of detail about the possible causes of Hannibal’s madness and occasionally dragging the ghosts of Alana and Abigail into it. That part was the most unforgivable. He would never forgive Freddie for publishing Abigail’s biography, but he could almost forgive these people less for forcing the two women in his life to live as ghosts trapped in Hannibal’s house, their deaths being repeated for wide-eyed tourists in English and Spanish on Tuesdays.

It wasn’t until they came to Hannibal’s bedroom, a room Will had never seen, that he felt much of anything concerning himself.

Even after all that had happened it still felt like an intrusion of Hannibal’s privacy to stand there near the foot of the bed where the monster wrapped in skin had been most vulnerable. If he tried hard enough he could see the dark silhouette of the man breathing deeply, a pillow packed under his head and no doubt in silk pyjamas.

“This was the room where Lecter slept every night, the place where his nightmarish dreams were plotted that would later transpire the next day.” How melodramatic. The man pointed to the fine sheets and throw pillows as the tour group crowded closer. “Now not much is known about the cannibal’s sex life, but it is a well known fact in the psychiatric world that psychopaths have an incredible amount of charm. This charm is often used to sexually seduce people in order to assist or cover their crimes. Alana Bloom was a confirmed sexual partner of Lecter, having been charmed in a similar fashion to cover his crimes.”

Will gritted his teeth, his nails digging into his palm.

Some asshole kid tossed his hand up.

“Yes?” The tour guide asked.

“I read online that Lecter was kinda’ faggy. Didn’t he have sex with that Graham guy?”

Will’s neck could have snapped with the force he turned to stare the little prick down, his face going pale. Where did he read that? Some trashy Tattle Crime knock off?

The tour guide’s brow furrowed. “Inappropriate choice of language aside, yes… there is a pretty respected theory in the psychiatric community that claims Will Graham was not a victim, but an accomplice. Unlike Alana Bloom, there is significant evidence that he assisted in the murder of Randall Tier and dismembered his body as a potential courting gift, or sorts, for the cannibal. Of course the courts didn’t find significance hard evidence to commit him, but yes, it is well accepted that Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter were at the very least lovers.”

Will barely suppressed a growl burning at his throat. Lovers? He and Hannibal? Of course, they were correct about him dismembering Randall… the image of Hannibal handing him the scalpel so he could sever the jaw was disturbingly easy to recall. But it hadn’t been a courting gift, or some sick way to impress Hannibal it had been… necessity. He had had to do it to prove he could be trusted, to be the lure. The better the lure, the more likely he and Jack would have caught the fish.

Will barely made it through the rest of the tour as the anger broiled inside of him. When he had to pass through the gift shop to exit he took one look at the “Eat the Rude” magnets and “You’re Invited To Hannibal Lecter’s Dinner Party” postcards and it spurred him out of the building and into the nearest restaurant or bar he could find that would be selling alcohol.

It just so happened to be an upscale bar that was filled with Baltimore accountants and lawyers all indulging in an after work drink. There was probably cheaper bars around if he moved out of the upscale district, but Hannibal loved luxury and it was just so him to be in the part of town so drenched in it, and Will needed a damn drink more than he needed a comfortable bar.

The bar was filled with modern art and dark alcoves tucked away with men in three piece suits talking business deals and swirling expensive wine. It was all just so grossly _Hannibal._ All the place needed was a theremin tucked away in a corner and it would have almost been nostalgic.

Will approached the bar, leaned against the tiles, watched the waterfall run over the embossed bar’s name, and then signaled the bartender over. “Double whiskey, thanks.” Will sighed and sat down, pushing the sunglasses up his head to sit in his curls. Some of the men were giving him a look, all alpha male and predatory, as if they could simply sense his inferiority.

He wasn’t dressed poorly, in fact Will only then noted he had somewhat dressed up as he had while he was the lure. It only seemed appropriate to face Hannibal head on dressed in his own person suit. When the amber liquid was sent his way with whiskey stones clacking against the glass, he let a breath out he hadn’t realized he had been holding.

Will had called in sick at the marina and taken a few days off for himself. He’d kissed Molly on the cheek and told her he wanted to visit an old friend back in Virginia. After the teacup and the drinking she was more than happy to oblige. She wouldn’t be here to drag him to the toilet or a cold shower this time. Only a cheap motel was waiting for him with shitty cable television and shag carpet.

As Will tilted the alcohol back he relished in the burn. If only it would burn the memories out of his skull along with his inhibitions. There were a few choice memories Will would have loved to be rid of.

While Will was nursing his whiskey, someone moved into the seat right beside him. There were like twenty other seats, why did some big shot lawyer have to pick that particular one? All of Will’s skin prickled at the proximity. He didn’t want to hear about how his little girl was flunking out of private school, or how his wife was fucking the underage pool boy.

“It’s a shame I can’t fashion that man into a pork loin roulade, he was quite rude. Lovers? Odysseus and Penelope were lovers, Patroclus and Achilles were something of a different calibre.”

Will, without missing a beat spoke into his whiskey. “Some scholars believe Patroclus and Achilles were lovers.” Will’s shoulders rose, the hair on the back of his neck standing like a frightened cat. That comparison had always unsettled him for that very reason. “Has stalking become a new hobby of yours? Florida to Baltimore in a matter of forty-eight hours, you must be trying very hard to ruin my life.”

With that Will knocked back the rest of the whiskey, letting the cool stones touch his lip. He couldn’t look over at the man to his right. He knew it was Hannibal, but if he didn’t look he could pretend it wasn’t. Speaking to a ghost was easy; speaking to the man was very different.

Really, he should have been surprised or angry—not that he wasn’t, Lecter had picked to run into him like old high school friends in a bar where Will couldn’t make a scene—but instead he was tired and a bit agitated. This was far too understated for Hannibal’s usual tastes.

“I partake in many hobbies, though you very well know stalking has never been one of them.” Out of the corer of Will’s eyes he saw a pair of lambskin gloves being placed on the bar. “Chianti Classico, thank you.” The bartender looked between the two of them and then gestured to Will’s drink.

“Yeah, another one. Thanks.”

God, what was he even doing? Will let out a small laugh before he buried his face into his hands. “This is ridiculous. It’s been three years, three years, and I haven’t even heard a single word about your whereabouts and suddenly I see you twice in a matter of days.” The laugh was sharp, edged with a bit of repressed insanity.

“You’ve only seen me once as you refuse to look at me now. We are both aware your aversion to eye contact is self-constructed so please do me the courtesy of looking at me William. I want to see your face.”

“Courtesy?” Will laughed out, finally rounding on Hannibal in his seat. Oh, there the anger was. “You…” He seethed, thrusting a finger forward until it hit Hannibal’s right between his collarbones. It didn’t sink through his skin or cause the figure to explode into a cloud of dust. He was real. “You piece of shit.” Will seethed out under his breath.

Will stared up at him and then yanked his hand back almost instantly. It was the man from his driveway for sure. It wasn’t the Hannibal he had known… this one look healthier, tan, and with longer hair that swept back and flicked up at the ends in a careless coif. Where was the order? The control? He sported a black dress shirt buttoned up and a pair of expensive sunglasses that by necessity of the proximity to his old house, he was wearing inside. There was something different too past the tanned, freckled skin from some hot European country, past even the haircut that looked laughably casual on him… Hannibal seemed like he had been unwound. The man he’d known before was always playing a dangerous game of chance with his freedom and had been full of cocky self-confidence. Being hunted for three years had not robbed him of his eloquence or poise, but instead it seemed as though he’d simply come back from a very long vacation, ready to sink his teeth back into whatever work he’d been gnawing on before he left.

“You look well.” Hannibal said, looking at him only for a moment before taking both their drinks from the bartender. The longer Hannibal looked, the more his face softened fondly. “Follow me Will, we have much and more to catch up on.”

Yes, they really did.

Will followed Hannibal through the bar and into one of the discreet alcoves where he could potentially punch this particular asshole in the face in privacy.

Once they were settled and the drink was slid his way, Will took a long sip from it to dull the bubbling anger.

“So what rock have you been hiding under— no,” Will laughed dryly, “you would never have retreated under some rock. That would be too… average, too archetypal to go in hiding. Let me guess, Naples? Paris?” Will scoffed.

“Paris for a few months then we moved to Florence permanently.” Hannibal said, observing Will over the rim of his chianti like he used to, a secret smile wrapped around the rim. _Just ask me who,_ it dared Will.

He didn’t want to rise to his bait, but it was hard not to. “How like you, even in hiding you find a way to drag someone into the vortex that is,” Will gestured to Hannibal with a flippant flick of his wrist, “whatever you are.”

“A man?” He offered, before tilting the wine forward to scent the breathing vintage.

“Not after what I’ve seen, no.” Will replied stonily as he sucked back more whiskey to calm his frayed nerves. “Now, I’ll bite, who is this “we”?” In Will’s mind Hannibal was supposed to have spent those three years in solitude, with no amount of human comfort, no happiness. He wasn’t allowed that when he had stolen it from Abigail and Alana. In the theatre of Will’s head it played out with Hannibal having his hair dyed some gaudy black, in some smoke shop in Columbia, alone and always on the run. Part of him, no matter how small, also didn’t particularly enjoy the idea of Hannibal finding a new chrysalis to whisper into, whether out of fear for that person or some… no, he wasn’t even going to continue that thought.

Hannibal leaned back in the seat, spreading out and laying his arm across the back of the rounded alcove bench. God, Will observed, if anything he’d become cockier. “Someone you know. Someone dear to me.”

For a brief moment Will’s mind let him believe that Hannibal had Abigail hidden away in Paris, dressed up in European fashion and speaking French in little corner bakeries. This time though, he’d seen a body. “Bedelia.” The answer just rolled off his tongue before he could really chew through it.

“Yes, does that surprise you?”

“Not really.” Will shrugged, clanking the stones around in his glass as he leaned back, opening his legs to mirror Hannibal. “Well, I hope you are happy together.” He jeered, puckering his face as the whiskey burnt all down his throat. “Lord knows you didn’t leave any happiness for the rest of us.”

“Bedelia and I have never had any romantic inclination, if that’s what you’re implying. But I would say we are as happy as one could be.” Hannibal must have seen how his words found a bad taste in Will’s mouth. He didn’t deserve that.

“Well, there’s no sense talking about what happiness I may have found since it seems you’ve found that answer in your own way.”

“I sent a gift, it would be rude not to… Molly is a strong Gaelic name. Stable.”

“Don’t say her name. Don’t you… don’t you dare.” Will breathed out warningly. “You don’t get to say her name, you don’t get to see her smile, or hear her laugh. You don’t get _any_ of that. That’s fucking mine.” Will wasn’t the possessive type, he didn’t get jealous over Molly but in that moment it felt like a larger predator was sizing up his mate and his entire mind was firing signals to attack. “You took everything from me.” His voice was shaking. He didn’t want to sound this afraid. What Will needed to be was threatening, to gain the gravity and respect Hannibal used to give him but instead it felt like a fox hissing up at a wolf, trying to defend its kill. They both knew the wolf could snap the foxes’ neck with one bite. “You took Alana… you took… you took Abigail.” Will’s voice broke and he grunted out before swallowing back more whiskey trying to mask the pain that had not lessened in the three years since that night. It was hard to speak when all he could feel was a gut-wrenching ache throughout his abdomen. It was becoming almost habit to think of Hannibal and feel a punishing pain in return.

This conversation was headed where it was destined to go. The moment Hannibal had spoken this was the inevitable result.

“… I need to know why. I don’t want to hear an excuse, I want you to be honest with me. If you don’t, I’m going to leave and I’m going to take my life with me and go somewhere I’m positive you will _never, ever_ find me. Understand?”

Hannibal nodded slowly, his pose falling from the confident stance he’d held before, which now in hindsight seemed to be almost peacocking in nature, to something more decorous. “Your clarity is matched only by my sincerity.”

Hannibal folded his hands together and sighed deeply, his eyes behind the sunglasses unreadable. “But Will, I have become your Pandora: a scapegoat for the darkness that you believe consumed your world once I was unleashed upon it. To ask the truth also requires you accepting it, no matter how you have perceived my actions. Can you accept that burden of conscious? To take what you have known and built a life on, and to find it turning to ash in your mouth?”  

There was little Hannibal could say that would absolve him of the horrors he’d committed that night to him, to Alana, and to Abigail. He could accept the terms though, to accept what Hannibal would say as the truth. He knew Hannibal and he would know when he was being fed more lies. He’d dealt with those enough to distinguish the truth from the falsehoods. “Yes, I accept that burden Doctor Lecter.” Will chased his words down with another long draw of whiskey, his eyes never leaving the man to wander through the dark corners of the restaurant. This is what he’d wanted for years, and Will waited with baited breath caught in his throat for the answer of _why._

“I cannot possibly expect you to believe the actions of that night if I first don’t serve up a raw, exposed portion of myself for you to bear witness of my sincerity. I will admit,” Hannibal’s head turned to examine Will, the loose blond and grey strands falling to brush along his forehead, which despite the grey remained as unchanged as before, “that I’ve had an immense interest in you since that late afternoon when you unloaded your gun into Garret Jacob Hobbs. But unlike Alana Bloom, my interest was not wholly of the professional nature.”

Not wholly professional? That was a pretty big understatement. “Well,” Will leaned forward along the table with a crooked smile, pushing his own folded hands forward to overtake Hannibal’s side, “I think I speak for my encephalitis when I say that I’ve never considered you and professionalism to be synonymous.”

“No.” Hannibal let out in a small laugh, as if they were merely trading cute, fun little japes. “I suppose not. But, what I mean is that in that moment you stood there… covered in Hobbs’ blood, wide eyed and frightened in a way an animal with its leg caught in a snare looks, something shifted. Because under your skin there was an _electricity_ to you, an arousal I could smell in the room. It was as if you’d been struck by lightening and the power surging within your very body had yet to find a way back to earth. This electricity, this… power, was looking to be conducted.” Hannibal’s voice grew distant, as if recalling a distant and pleasurable memory.

Had it been like that? It had been so long ago and Will had felt fuzzy from the adrenaline and shock that ran through his body. It was unsettling though that the more Hannibal said, the more he seemed to grow lost in the memories. It felt as though Will was privy to his fantasies.

“Of course I then did not grow to love you until I saw you in jail, bearing witness to desperation fostering a new darkness within you. Though I truly did not fall in love with you Will… until you had tried to shoot that rude therapist.”

Will struggled to swallow down his whiskey without choking, his hand shaking around the glass and sweat beginning to bead on his neck. Where did Hannibal get off saying it so casually? He could just say things like that and expect Will to continue on their conversation. “You can’t just say that.” Will interrupted, going to grip his hair in his fist. He couldn’t just fucking come out and say he was in love with him. No, that wasn’t even playing fair.

“Can’t I?”

Not after all he’d done, he’d lost that right.

Will’s throat constricted and some god-awful noise came from it, like the squeal of the cornered fox they both knew he was quickly becoming, when Hannibal’s hand reached over and gently pulled in frustration. “Will, stop pulling your hair and look at me.” The small touch was nothing and yet Will could recall Hannibal’s hand wrapping around his own to ease the gun from his grip. These were the complexities and the nuances. These were the hands that had killed Abigail that sought to comfort him now.

“No. No you can’t say things like that.” Will rasped out, and god if he didn’t sound afraid and useless as he had been before prison. He needed to be angry, not frightened or confused. Will tore his hands away and cradled the whiskey, staring down where nothing but an almost translucent ring of whiskey sat at the bottom. He needed a third glass, fuck, he needed it now if this was going to happen.

Hannibal seemed to sense this, and thank god he did because he ordered another whiskey for Will without a single judging glance his way. When the waiter was gone it took everything in Will to speak again and not simply leave. “That night, I envied his hate.”

“Did you imagine it was me that you attempted to kill?”

“Yes.” There was no point in lying, not with him. It had been Hannibal he’d wanted to kill that night, to be able to pull the trigger so easily and pour hatred into the metal without any feelings of remorse or pain to muddle his conviction. “He was the you I could hate. That I could kill without this… this…” Will fell back against the cool back of the alcove. God, he was pathetic. Will pulled his hands up to stare at them as they shook. “This…”

This what exactly? Just what was this? Other than him babbling and being unable to form coherent sentences that didn’t sound as broken as Hannibal had always made him feel. “Need.” Will finally steeled out, turning to look up at the sunglasses and hard features that stared at him unreadable.

No matter how badly he wanted to play the wounded, angry drunkard, or even the happy and completely unaffected soon-to-be-wed version of himself, some part of him was still back in that barn trying to pour his hatred into Hannibal in a way that made sense. In a way that was sane and wasn’t this craving masticating his insides.

“It made what you did that more much sickening, and hurtful and just… Hannibal, _why_ would you do that to me?”

“Because, I am not God.” Hannibal moved his glasses up for a moment, to stare at Will and unnerve every inch of him as those eyes were not the shark eyes he’d always thought them to be, but were once again the eyes of the man in that kitchen. They were exposed, and vulnerable. “Amusing is it not? That not even those elevated can achieve sanctity. We are, after all, merely clay and to dream any higher is simple human egotism.” Hannibal let him see him, see the way the small wrinkles in the corners of his eyes tightened before the glasses were pulled back down to shield him. “I was betrayed and experienced heartache. It would seem that I am human after all.”

 

_____________________

“Shit.”

Will’s nails scraped along the backs of his shoulder and down his collarbone with the thread bare washcloth. The steam filling the small motel washroom was heavy and made drawing his heavy, drunken breaths difficult to do.

The water was scalding to the point that his organs were surely cooking inside of him like meat inside the skin of a sausage put to the grill. It would be a nice change of pace if he could boil and scrub his skin off all at once.

“Jesus.” Will laughed out sourly as his hand stilled somewhere on his chest as he ran over the same patch of skin for the fourth time. He was acting like some victim, shown by Hollywood to have gotten drunk, crawled into a shower, and scrubbed themselves raw in order to finally feel clean. He could empathize with the feeling of perpetual dirtiness.

Nothing about being at the bar with Hannibal felt clean.

_“They were never meant to die Will. I told Alana to be blind, to leave. I was a friend to her, a teacher even. And Abigail… Abigail was to be my present to you. I had passports, a house closing in Florence with a river to fish in. There was an existence molded and planned perfectly for us to assume, a place where the judgment of others would be left behind and where Abigail could flourish under the proper guidance she deserved. But you betrayed me, Will. I had even given you the chance to apologize. I wanted this life more than I had desired anything in my life, perhaps the only thing I have ever truly wanted. But you didn’t want my gift and I could not give you that precious, beautiful gift after you had refused it. I can only whisper to the chrysalis, I can only force my hand so far Will, but it had to be your choice. You made your choice.”_

How was he supposed to handle that? To take that night and all it represented, of Hannibal taking away his happiness only to be told not only had Will contributed, but that Hannibal had had a different happiness planned for them. Everything was turning to ash.

Will pulled the cloth away and stared down as the water beat into it. He could hear the rain on the roof of the house in Florence if he tried hard enough, or even the sound of the stream. There was Abigail, a few years older and dressed in fishing gear, touting all her knowledge of European perch and asp. Or maybe it was the ocean with Hannibal strolling through the waves with his khakis rolled up switching between Italian and French as Abigail looked between then both and laughed out a string of French. Will could taste the salt.

“You were supposed to leave…”

_“It would not be complete without you. We were to be a family.”_

“I could have found you. You don’t think I wanted that life instead of being some byline by Freddie Lounds? But you didn’t leave, you stayed and I couldn’t just… I couldn’t…. It just isn’t reality, it wouldn’t have been sustainable.”

“ _And now you have a new reality. Reality is temporal, Will. Our reality is what we decide it to be. You decided what your reality is. You are always deciding.”_

Abigail was giggling as she splashed at Hannibal who merely grinned. She turned around and ran at Will, smelling of Hannibal, and salt, and peaches.

“ _I wish you luck in your new reality Will, I will not miss watching our chapter find closure. Enjoy the drinks, consider them my treat.”_

Will’s fist curled around the cloth and started to scrub away at the filth again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again everyone! I am so grateful for your wonderful comments. I haven't had such nice things said about my writing in... gosh, forever. Truly, I'm so thankful for every single comment. You guys rock!
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed the re-introduction of Hannibal. That shit disturber is going to ruin everything. I'll probably be slower in uploading the next chapter since I've caught up to what I've written thus far. (Though I have to admit your comments made me try to write super fast!)
> 
> This, of course, was not beta'd so I really do appreciate any comments that come along, especially in regards to content (or even grammar). 
> 
> OH, and this is a little random but I am soooo picturing future, tanned Hannibal as looking like Mads Mikkelsen in Charlie Country man (Nigel). 
> 
> Until next time <3


	3. Sauvignon Blanc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two messy halves of Will's life come together and Molly learns how to Google.

“I was thinking that it would be really nice if we put new dog bowls on our gift registry. I mean, no offence to the ones you brought but I think Maggie’s is beginning to resemble a chew toy. It would be like a wedding gift to the gang. What do you think, hm?”

“Mn, what? Sorry, I wasn’t listening Molly.”

A bright red light shined in his face as Molly turned and pointed the gift registry gun at him like a Glock 9MM. Her pose was so off, but she clicked the scanner at him as if he had a barcode hidden on him somewhere. “Funny, the scanner isn’t coming up with your product name.”

Will picked up a small cat-shaped salt shaker and stared down at the lifeless holes in its eyes. Nothing screamed tasty like shaking salt out of a cat’s eyes onto mashed potatoes. He turned to face Molly and gave it a few shakes for the full effect.

“And what would that be? Distracted fiancee who is going to snap if he has to look at one more toaster oven or kitschy salt and pepper shaker?”

“No, sexy but brooding… and distracted. What’s up with you, you've been so out of it lately?" Molly was still all smiles but Will could sense the underlying worry in her words. The teacup, the drinking, the distraction... it was all eroding away at her. This was supposed to be their time to make up the difference.

"Sorry Molly, this just isn't really my area. Need your boat fixed, I got it." He touched a set of hugging salt and pepper shakers. "But ask me the difference between sea salt and table salt or a sheet's thread count and you've lost me... I'm trying though."

This was what their weekend had consisted of: running around all of Sugarloaf's boutiques trying to find the perfect centrepieces for the tables and gifts for the registry. Molly had persisted they had to be light blue or "aquamarine" as she had insisted on calling it. Apparently during his time in Baltimore Molly and her girlfriend Jillian had decided that purple just wasn't the right colour for a summer wedding.

And what the hell did Will know about colour co-ordination anyways? The entire process was beginning to feel more like Jillian and Molly's wedding with Jillian using her one college course in event planning to proclaim herself suddenly God's gift to wedding planning.

Today though was about them. No Jillian, no dogs, and certainly no Hannibal. It was why Will was trying to care about why they needed monogramed towels or new dog dishes.

"I know you're trying and I love that about you... but seriously I need your input Will. Yes or no to the dog bowls? Work with me here, baby. Jillian says you should only put things you really need in registry, and you know my parents... they are going to buy half the stuff anyways and I don't want them buying the stuff if you don't think we need it." Molly flipped the dog bowl and hovered the scanner over it waiting for the go ahead.

"Yeah, sure. Why not." Will forced out, wrapped up in a smile. Maybe Jillian would have been a better choice after all. These items were all going to be bought by Molly's cousins and their old college friends anyways. Sure, his dad was going to be there but he would be more interested in the open bar and Molly's younger sister. Lord knew the man probably had no idea what a gift registry even was. Like father like son.

A few "beeps" filled the air as Molly scanned the different sized dog dishes and then turned towards more useless kitchen knick knacks. As she busied herself in the pros and cons of a garlic press and egg poacher, Will turned towards the wine accessories. There were thin champagne flutes and the huge bowl wine glasses that were supposed to help the wine breathe, or at least that was what Hannibal had explained.

Will grumbled, shaking his head. He wasn't going to think about that now. Not with Molly here. Not that that had stopped the thoughts from plaguing every other waking moment since Baltimore. It didn't matter if he was playing fetch with the dogs, or curling into Molly as she read... it was sitting heavy at the back of his head like a migraine thudding quietly and waiting for the right time to flourish.

"Hey, do we even have wine glasses?" Will called out as he picked up a box and turned it over in his hands. It was the cheapest set and looked durable enough.

A confused voice responded from another aisle. "Wait, I thought you hated wine? Doesn't it give you headaches or something?" No, it didn't, what was associated with it did. But if he was going to get over this thing with Hannibal, it was time he stopped avoiding something as silly as wine. "Because I would love to not have to drink another sauvignon blanc out of whiskey tumblers. Bring them over here and I'll even give you the honour of scanning them!" Molly sang out over another set of "beep"s.

"Well to be fair the wine you buy is pretty headache inducing." Will responded as he turned the box right side up and tucked it under his arm.

"I'll have you know "Girls Night Out" is the height of sophistication. Oh, yes... you're so right."

"For poor college girls maybe. And what was that?" Will chuckled as he turned the corner and nearly dropped the box when he noticed the man standing beside Molly at the knife display. This far from home he no longer sported the sunglasses and was dressed in a light blue dress shirt. He also sported an easy smile as he pretended to help Molly with no idea of who she was.

That bastard had no sense of limits.

"What are you doing here?" Will hissed, stalking forward towards the pair of people that caused the most confusing, nauseating mix of emotions in his life. His free hand slipped around Molly's waist protectively and his brows knotted together when all he received was an easy smile from Hannibal.

"Hello Will. It's a pleasant surprise seeing you here."

Molly's eyes widened in understanding as she looked between the two men. "Wait, you two know each other? What a small world!" No Molly. Will winced as she turned to Hannibal with an excited look. "This is the first time I've met one of Will's old friends."

"We weren't friends." Will steeled out, shooting Hannibal a sharp look. Just what did he think he was doing? They were supposed to be getting closure not whatever this weird stalking thing was. He wasn't allowed to just waltz into his life like this, and he was certainly not allowed to talk to Molly. No matter what happened in Baltimore, he was not allowed near Molly. She was supposed to only know cancer, and Will intended it to stay that way.

"What Will means to say is I used to be his professor, so perhaps friends wouldn't be the most correct term to use. Although we did spend a large amount of time together so I would like to have considered us friends."

God, Will wanted to burst out laughing at the very thought of Hannibal being his professor. He'd tried to teach him the joys of killing and look where that left them.

"So you taught at the police academy? That's amazing, what course did you teach?" Molly turned around in Will's arms and grabbed at the inside of his elbow. She was acting like a dog who was finally being brought out on a walk for the first time in years. To be fair, this was the first friend she believed she was meeting so maybe the analogy was rather apt. Was he really that bad of a fiancé? "And look at me, I'm being so rude. My name is Molly...."

"Garett Jacobs. And I taught a few courses in profiling and criminal psychology, Will took my Adaptive Personality Disorder course."

Hannibal reached out to take Molly's hand in his own and the idea of Molly coming in any kind of physical contact with the hands that had bandaged him so tenderly and pulled his hands as they tried to rip his own hair out was too much. These two realities were never meant to merge, like oil and water. Will's life wasn't a damn oil vinaigrette dressing for Gods sake.

"Look, I don't mean to be rude but we really have to get back to shopping. Lots of... of waffle makers to buy. Come on Molly." Will gave a sharp tug and sent a desperate, silent plea at Hannibal over the top of her curls to just leave. The guilt about everything that happened in Baltimore was beginning to rear it's ugly head and the innocent, almost glazed expression he received back from Hannibal made him appear simply peachy about that fact.

But Molly was intent on mixing things up, her hands bracing her hips and expression only made more determined by his response. "This is the first time I've met someone from your past, why are you being so rude?" The headache was beginning to pound.

Molly just couldn't see that she was in the presence of a wolf wrapped so tightly in sheep's clothing it was almost impossible to detect. Not that it was her fault, almost no one saw Hannibal for what he was until it was too late. Most people, but not Will. They both knew just what the other person was capable of.

"Oh no, I am the one being rude. I'm intruding on your shopping." Then he feigned turning but Will knew Hannibal well enough to realize he wasn't done with the conversation. Conversations did not end until Hannibal allowed them to end. "Before I go though, could I recommend a different type of glassware? Those ones shatter easily, if I could be so bold I would suggest instead going with the Zaptel brand. They are the only brand I allow to touch my finest vintages." Hannibal's eyes moved purposefully from Molly to Will's hand tucked against the jut of her hip and smiled.

"No really," Will began, "we really should be--"

"See? And look how helpful he is." Molly arched an eyebrow, rather unimpressed by her grumpy and skittish fiancé. "Sorry about Will... I don't know what's with him today, I think the pressure of the wedding is starting to catch up. You must know how he is."

Hannibal's fingers moved to trace along one of the knifes on display. "All too well."

Will watched the way his finger slid along the knife and the anger was draining into something else. He swallowed heavily. "I knew him intimately over that year. You are a lucky woman... any person Will lets into his life and allows to see all aspects of himself is lucky. You seem to understand him so well, he must really love you to have let you understand him so deeply."

Hannibal did know, he knew just what Will was capable of far better than Molly did. He knew that horrid part of him that longed for the house in Florence and he stood there casually flaunting it. He knew the sight of Will as he dismembered, as he longed for Abigail, as he fell apart. That's what this was wasn't it? Gosh, he wanted to laugh out loud. How childish, how regressively _schoolyard_ of him.

Hannibal was showing off how much better he knew Will to Molly without Molly even knowing it. That was needlessly cruel and so Hannibal. And yet it was still Molly that Will would go home with.

"Well I mean I would love it if he actually talked about his life before Sugarloaf once and a while." She laughed a little strained.

"You two know I'm right here, right?" Will asked deadpan.

"Shush you." Molly grinned and leaned in to give Will a kiss against the stubble on his jaw. "It's not every day that I get to meet an old friend of yours."

"Well, I don't wish to take away any more time from what seems to be a lovely gift registry." Hannibal nodded his head respectfully to Molly and Will felt dread run cold through him as she took the bait. Hook, line, and sinker.

"You should come!" She blurted out. "To the wedding I mean. You should come to our wedding next Saturday. We would love if you could make it."

Hannibal, to his credit, looked surprised. He always was quite the actor. "I am in the area staying at the Four Seasons for a conference. I'm not completely sure I'm free that weekend but I will try my hardest to come." Then he turned to look at Will, smiling. He did have plans to attend the wedding from a safe, closure-worthy distance not to sit beside Will's father in the front row reserved for family, catch the flowers with the bridesmaids, and give a tear-jerking toast. "You have a beautiful wife Will, take care of her."

"Thanks." Will said, eyeing him as Hannibal gave the wine glass box in Will's hand one final look and then bade them both a small farewell.

He and Molly stood there for a few moments watching the elegant line of Hannibal as he moved through the department store. Where was he even headed after the store? Was he really just camping out at the Four Seasons? And truly what on earth was the point of all this? God, he needed a bottle of aspirin for the migraine blossoming in his skull.

Molly turned and looked up at Will and grabbed the scanner. With a scowl she jabbed it against his chest and pulled the trigger so many times that the string of "beep"s turned into one long, continuous noise.

"You still trying to find my barcode?" Will glanced down in what could only be described as bemusement.

"Yeah, but it seems rude prick isn't coming up." Molly hissed out before butting the blunt end of the scanner into his sternum. She was angry, that much was clear. The brown curls were slipping out of the bow clipping back the top of her hair, and Molly had that frazzled look she got when she was about to flare up. With a soft grunt Will wrapped his hand around the end.

"Okay, enough of that please." He said gently as he tried to push it away. It was a bad sign that he was beginning to sympathize with the kitchen supplies at the end of Molly's gun.

"I'll stop when I'm ready." Molly gave one last hard knock before walking along to the wine glasses that Hannibal had mentioned without checking to see if he followed. "Seriously Will, why were you so rude to him? I know it sounds dumb but that was kind of a big deal just then."

How could he possibly answer that? Because Hannibal could easily turn Molly into goulash if he wanted to. No, it wasn't that simple. Fuck. Will ran a hand through his hair as he trailed after her. "Look, there is a lot to more to the H-.... Garett thing. Can we just leave it at that?" That involved Will at one point picturing settling down with their daughter Molly knew nothing of in another reality. Or how for a moment when Hannibal had smoothed his hair back before gutting him that for the briefest of moments Will had thought he was going to kiss him... and had been okay with that. Shit, it had been a while since that particular thought had come up. Baltimore really had been a bad, bad idea.

"No. No we can't leave it at that! Stop it with this coddling bull crap Will!" Molly plucked up the box of wine glasses and shoved them at Will, her mood finally coming to a crescendo that much like a firecracker crackled white and hot for a few seconds and then fizzled out almost as quickly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to raise my voice. But please, stop with all these secrets. I don't know what you are trying to protect me from but whatever it is I can handle it. I'm not some weak child Will that you can leave ignorant, so stop treating me like one."

And God how he loved her for that. It was obvious that he owed her at least some explanation. He didn't want to lie, but the truth just wasn't an option. _'Oh you know, he made me eat a man's flesh, framed me for his crimes, put me in a psychiatric jail, and then had the gall to say he loved me and still have me believe it._ ' "Alright... Garett and I worked together on a lot of side projects and he was trying to be a mentor to me," Will lied uncomfortably as he reached down and wrapped one of Molly's brown curls in his fingers before laying it against the fabric of her summer dress. "But he was always rather unprofessional and kept trying to make me do things I didn't want to."

"Unethical things? Wait..." Molly asked curiously before taking Will's free hand in her warm and manicured one. "Did he touch you or something? Is that what that was?" Her face instantly puckered at the very idea.

He was going to go with breaking the academic integrity rules at the academy but at the sight of her face it was clear she was creating the lie all by herself. "Uhm, yeah. Sort of.... Yeah." Will said quietly, looking off to the display of silver cutlery lining the walls. " We got drunk after finals. He knew the power he held over me and tried to use it."

Molly tightened her grip on his hand to the point Will was half sure she was going to break his finger bones. "That asshole! And I was so nice to him too!" She growled out before shooting a glance where Hannibal had left amidst the Kitchen Aid mixers. "Holy hell, and I invited him to the wedding. Baby, I'm sorry. Oh god, what a terrible excuse for a human being. If he does come I am putting a laxative in his squash soup so help me God."

"I would love to see that." Will leaned down to press a kiss into her hair that smelt of peaches and her lavender conditioner. He chuckled into it despite the knots in his stomach before wrapping a hand around her waist.

______________

"So you're telling me he had some gay romantic fling with his professor and you're just totally fine with that?" Jillian asked over her fishbowl sized red sangria that had stained her long fingers red when she'd plucked out the orange slices from it and sucked them dry.

Molly tucked into her roast beef sandwich before stirring her coke with peanuts. "Jillian, for the last time it wasn't a fling. Honestly it sounds more like that creep got him drunk and held his marks over him or something awful like that. I just feel terrible for inviting him like that." Molly sighed heavily as even the ever nostalgic coke and peanuts just tasted like guilt. They hadn't talked about it since but Will was being more skittish than usual. Then again, he'd been weird for the past few weeks. Her mother had wrote it off as pre-wedding jitters on Tuesday over the phone and Molly was trying to do the same.

"Yeah sure, I hear you... But I mean you'd think he'd have mentioned it before. I thought you had that talk with him ages ago? That's just something you do before marriage. 'Hey, I made out with a few girls in college and touched a redhead's boobs in sophomore year. Have you ever played tonsil hockey with another dude or sucked any dicks?' Angelo and I did that almost two months into dating. Turns out my one pearl diving experience makes me less experienced out of the two of us. Go figure." Jillian smirked as Molly grew visibly uncomfortable.

"I mean I told him about when we used to get drunk and kiss but he never brought anything up. He just told me his experiences were pretty uneventful." But it wasn't like this was something you just casually brought up in conversation.

"That's fair but with the wedding around the corner you'd think he'd finally fess up to his weird secret double life. If you're going to become Molly Foster Graham I think that much should be a given." She ran the napkin over her red fingertips and then cleaned up her pink shellac nails. "On that note though, what did Will say to changing the colour scheme? He's okay with it right? Because I saw these adorable aqua roses--you know the white ones they stick in tubes of blue dye--and I thought they would look amazing. We can go after you close up shop.'

"He didn't seem to care one way or another." Molly opened up the top of her sandwich to stare down at the shavings of beef and dijon mustard smeared over it. They really put too much mustard on the right half. Molly brandished a knife and started spreading it around. "But you know how he is, he gets all apathetic and mysterious over things like this. I can never tell when he really doesn't care or is feigning disinterest in some weird attempt to be macho and indifferent to flower arrangements."

"Did he do that sexy face stroking thing he does when he pretends not to care?"

Molly grinned darkly. "Yes. I swear it's one of the main reasons I'm marrying him. I mean that and his dogs." And the way he held her at night like she was something worth loving, and only smiled with endless patience when she insisted he inspect her breasts for lumps for the third time that month.

Jillian exaggerated a little shudder. "And instead I get Angelo shaving his back hair into the bathroom sink. Can we trade?"

"Nope." Molly grinned before lifting up her sandwich and taking a few bites.

She and her best friend ate in silence for a few moments under the umbrella on the patio of the cafe.

"Anyways... back on the professor thing..." Jillian finally dragged back up, her eyes alight with the excitement of drama and gossip. "I get why he would have been less than thrilled to share this story with you but I mean getting married requires a bit of honesty. I say if Will isn't going to tell you anything about his past then you should at the very least Google him. I mean you've done at least that right?"

Molly rolled her eyes. "You're being dramatic, I don't need to Google my fiancé Jillian. We don't even own a computer."

"But he could have been a serial killer for all you know Molly. He could be hiding this big past where he went all Albert Fish or Bundy on some poor innocent women and you could be the big, elaborate final victim." Jillian threw her hands up for a moment before she swept them down to grab onto her sangria. She sucked it up through a straw with lipstick marks around it. "All I'm saying is it takes one stop at an Internet cafe and you could know all the gay secrets he's hiding, or I mean at the very least you can sleep in blissful sleep knowing your future husband isn't an axe murderer. Think about it at least, okay? For me." And then Jillian batted her lashes and ran a ringed finger over the top of Molly's hand.

She could never say no to that damn face. "Okay, I'll think about it. But only because you know I can't stand that face."

"That's all I'm asking for." Jillian sang before taking a long sip of her sangria and passing it over the table. "Now you need to try this and we are going to pretend we are in Spain."

Molly grinned.

Once lunch was done and Jillian had gone back to her salon, Molly slowly walked down Main Street back to her boutique. It was a bit of a cloudy day but despite the clouds all the shops were open and had their patios and doors open to the public. Her steps faltered and then backed up a little when she noticed "Mouse and Cheese" the Internet cafe that literally doubled as a cafe. The rates were painted on their windows and the place seemed to be calling her closer with the cute wind-chime ratting softly from their door and the smiling latina woman inside. She even had enough left over from lunch for half an hour of internet.

Well, Molly looked around conspiratorially and then walked up to the door nervously, it wouldn't hurt to take just one little peek. A single google never hurt anyone and it wasn't like she was really going behind Will's back. She'd tell him and they'd laugh about it when she got home...

"Half an hour please." Molly slipped the change across to the woman at the counter and then was passed a slip of paper with her login information. "Thanks!" With her info in hand, Molly took a seat at a computer nearby a lucky Chinese cat batting the air. "Let's test just how useful you are." With a few clicks she was in. First, she checked her email for the first time in well over a month and scanned over the free PCs and Nigerian princes until she was sure there was nothing important there.

Then she opened Google and her finger hovered over the keyboard, twitching. God, there was the guilt again. Frankly Will was in such a mood lately that the idea of ticking him off days before the wedding was a little unnerving. She could wrangle in a pissy Will normally with a good dinner and a well timed kiss, but with the added stress of the wedding the last thing she needed was another call from Don.

Well... maybe he should have thought of that before he decided to treat her like a damn mushroom and keep her in the dark about his life. With a renewed fire, Molly typed in the words "Will Harris Graham".

Once she clicked enter, her reflexes made her look away from the computer. It had looked like a lot of results. Maybe someone famous had the same name? Or maybe he really was a serial killer. With her heart thumping in her chest and threatening to choke her she turned around to face the computer and began to scroll.

A "Tattle Crimes" news article was the first thing to pop up with the title "Murder Lovers Dispute Turned Deadly" and there, splashed in high definition and full colour was Will. "Oh Will..." Molly gasped out faintly as she tried to take it all in. He was in a hospital bed, hooked up to countless machines with thick gauze wrapped his midsection where the scar from the car wreck was. He was so pale looking and his expression was so gaunt and lifeless, nevermind the colonoscopy bag that was hanging near the scar exposed to the world. It was obvious he was in no state to give permission so it was all so _violating_.

She'd seen Will sick with the stomach bug, and she'd lugged him to the bed drunk and broken but she had never seen him like that. It didn't even look like her fiancee in that photo, just someone who shared features with the man she loved.

What... had happened? With a growing sense of dread Molly began to scroll. The words weren't even processing and instead she stared at the photo of two brunettes, one kind looking and the other wind chaffed. There was also a bulldog-esque black man giving a press conference with bandages around his throat. And below that was where he saw the photo of Garett Jacobs--Hannibal Lecter (that name sounded familiar)--at the bottom holding the door open for Will entering a building. The caption read, "Cannibal serial killer "Chesapeake Ripper" and accomplice/rumoured lover to be tried for multiple counts of murder."

Then Molly typed in "Chesapeake Ripper" and scrolled. Then "FBI Special Detective Will Graham", "Randall Tier" and finally "Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham lovers".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys, your incredible (and long, wow) comments have all been read and re-read. I just want you to know they have been some of the highest compliments ever paid to my writing and it makes me so warm and fuzzy inside. You guys rock! <3
> 
> In celebration of that... the next chapter is going to earn this story its explicit M/M rating. Yup, it's already that time and I'm super excited to write it.
> 
> As always, this isn't beta'd so comments are super super appreciated. I am also posting this from my iPad so some formatting will be changed later. You book readers keep me on track with Molly, and be sure to chastise me into place.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it!


	4. Honesty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cornered animals may bite.

Will lifted his glass of juice up and smelt orange and engine grease smeared all over his fingers from his shift at the marina. Splayed underneath his other hand were the few pictures of Abigail he kept tucked away. One was from a visit to the hospital where Alana had taken a photo of Will and Hannibal asleep again at her bedside. It had been given to him from her personal effects once he had been legally declared innocent. Along with it was a photo that Hannibal had taken from his stupid antique camera after a dinner together. It was an awkward photo in hindsight because Will looked every bit the awkward father who was unsure of what to do with his hands but still looked inexplicably proud. Abigail, despite Will's awkward smile, looked happy enough. 

He spread them out and then fingered the one of the three of them together in the hospital. Weren't they just the poster family for a Macy's ad?

With a sour chuckle Will busied his mouth with the juice again but kept staring out of the corner of his eye. Molly wasn't supposed to be home for another hour and after the trip to Baltimore he needed to see Abigail’s face again—not in the tabloids or some crap online article but seeing her alive and still a child. Hannibal’s words still decided to haunt his skull.

_There was an existence molded and planned perfectly for us to assume, a place where the judgment of others would be left behind and where Abigail could flourish under the proper guidance she deserved._

Time and space dissolved into nothing but background noise as Will's fingers stroked along the edges and traced the contours of Abigail's face. He was lost enough that his fingers straying over Hannibal's features with a fond nostalgia wasn't acknowledged.

This was the way things were supposed to be; the three of them in a cut and paste, papier-mâché life—messy, sticky, but still somehow cohesive and in it’s own way beautiful.

It felt like he was some old ex-football player who lost his scholarship to a busted knee and kept mooning over his lost life. Will wanted it, yearned for it even, stupid as it was. That wasn't his life anymore, this thing... this _healthy_ , sane thing with Molly was his life and yet Will wasn't known for either of those two things.

Will looked up from the photos to the kitchen with the rooster sculptures above the sink and the chicken-shaped soap holders. All the kitschy roosters and chickens used to be something he loved seeing in the kitchen. Molly collected them for some unknown reason and as ugly as Will found them it was the sort of ugly that still felt wholesome and familiar no matter how hard it was sometimes to look at them.

Yet, now when he looked at them they just sort of looked ugly. The paint job on the soap holder was pretty terrible; the whites of the chicken’s eyes were bleeding into the edge of its beak.

When Will closed his eyes the chicken kitsch faded away and he could smell the strange, foreign aromas of Hannibal's cooking that blended together to form something mouth watering every time. Abigail was beside him going through her Psych 101 notes from college, and Hannibal would lean in periodically from cooking to check over her answers. Abigail was whining that it was practically cheating to have a psychiatrist and criminal profiler helping with her psychology homework.

Hannibal chuckled, and Will smiled.

The colours drained away but his smile didn't and the cool calm of early evening remained behind as the ghosts drifted out of his vision. He hadn't bothered to turn on any of the lights so he was sitting in relative darkness. He was going to start needing glasses instead of contacts if he kept doing that.

His fingers spread over the photos once more and the smile fell at last.

That vision of home had died that night and he had built a new home in turn. Molly had been his new everything and, fuck, he was... still is... hopefully still is _happy_ with her because she was alive and beautiful inside and out, while Abigail was dead and Hannibal was beautiful but ugly inside.

"Stupid.... asshole." Will grunted out as he reached up to grope at his temples. Hannibal just had to come in and unearth everything he had buried and drag it from memory back to reality.

Reality was temporal and Hannibal seemed clearly intent on changing Will's.

The lights flickered on with a buzz from the tired filaments and Will's hand moved over the images of his other home, pressing his fingers and palm over the damning evidence. "You're home late." Will said with a laugh, turning in his seat to stare at Molly. The laugh instantly died on his tongue at the sight of her.

Her eyes were swollen, puffy and her irises were rimmed with pink. She'd been crying... hadn't she? "Molly..." Will began as he shifted on the stool. Molly barely offered him a glance and turned towards the fridge. "Hey Mol', something happen at work?" Concern for the sake of someone else was an emotion Will still struggled with. He could get into someone's skin and feel their pain and empathize, but he always found it hard to _sympathize_. It was clear though, even to someone who did not possess Will's gifts, as Molly stayed silent when she rooted through the fridge, that there was something deeply, profoundly wrong.

A nauseous feeling gripped Will's stomach as he watched his fiancée uncap the orange juice and, in an action far too rude for her tastes, she wrapped her chapped lips around the plastic rim and tilted it back.

So instead Will stayed silent, watching her throat move until finally, with a small sigh, she capped the orange juice jug, pushed it back into the fridge, and took a seat on the other side of the island.

Will's hand moved towards the photos, trying to act casual as he slowly swept them towards himself.

"Are those of Abigail?" She asked.

And then Will knew that Molly knew.

Surprisingly the nausea didn't grow or boil over. He didn't feel particularly distraught or upset by the situation. Instead a heavy sigh left his lips. This was long overdue. "Yeah, yeah they are." His hand peeled away from the evidence, neither his old life nor Molly in need of his protection. Her fingers reached out to grab the closest one of Hannibal and him sleeping on opposite sides of Abigail's hospital bed.

Will watched Molly tilt the photo in her hands and inspect it. Her teeth bit back her lip as she stared silently. The clicking and hum of the fridge compressor starting up filled the quiet between them. There between the hands Will had kissed a million times, had wrapped around him and guided him between her thighs, the hands that threw pancake batter at him, got cut on pulp mystery novels, and had the ring he'd saved diligently over, held everything Will had tried to leave behind but refused to be forgotten.

"So," she finally spoke before laying the photos down between them, "I think it's safe to say he was never your professor."

"No." Will replied, the honesty somewhat welcome after the lies. "Nor did he ever sexually assault me. That was a lie too."

Molly snorted before a small pained laugh left her. "I figured as much." Her curls moved as she shook her head in disbelief and reached up to pinch her nose. She held it there for a moment, trying to compose herself but the small telltale twitch of her lips told Will she wasn't going to be able to. Not this time. Molly wasn't going to let it go or allow it to be smoothed over with one of the gifts Will always bought in anger or apology. "I was so blind. So fucking blind."

"Molly..."

"No, Will. Don't." Her shoulders hunched before her nails were caught between her teeth, ripping at the pale peach polish there. "I was, I always knew something had happened but I didn't want to push, you know? That was your business and I trusted you that you'd tell me in time. You said car crash and I accepted the scar, you said police officer, and I just nodded my head. I didn't ask or pry..." Molly's voice wavered and Will wanted to reach out and comfort her, to tell her something that would make it stop. He could see in her eyes how she was feeling.

It was beyond hurt, and assuming her position, Will could feel the pain poisoning her normally sweet insides. Death had been one thing for her to deal with. Death romanticized those it stole away, and to her, her ex had been a good man. Will was supposed to be a good man too, someone she could finally trust and open up to. He liked dogs, he worked a blue-collar job and sure he drank too much, but he was one of the _good guys_. Except now he wasn't—had never been really.

"I feel like you thought I was just some dumb little girl who couldn't handle knowing all this about you. Did you think this could just continue on forever and I'd never need to know? You didn't trust me to know anything about you." Molly couldn't even look at him when she said it, when she finally did her eyes were brimmed with tears.

Will stood up from his seat, the stool scratching against the floor. "Molly... it's not that I didn't trust you. I trust you, I just want to protect you." From Hannibal, from the man Will had been, perhaps still had the capacity to be. "You don't know what he's capable of... what he'd do to-"

"That's bullshit and you know it!" Molly shouted behind her hand as the firecracker of anger shot off but this time it did not fizzle out. The firecracker landed, exploded, and began to set the room on fire. "Of course I didn't know what he was capable of Will, _you never told me_! You let me invite him to the wedding for Christ’s sake. Don't spin this to make it look like you were doing me a… a service, Will."

He wasn't spinning this on her! That wasn't his goddamn intention and she knew it. "You know I'm not pinning this on you. None of this is your fault, Molly."

"Damn right it's not."

"You don't understand. I had to protect you, I've lost everything else I tried to protect and I wasn't going to let you be put in danger like that." Will reached up to pull at his hair, frustration crawling up his spine. She didn't see Bev reeking of formaldehyde and sliced like pastrami, or how Hannibal took his hurt and love and funnelled it into the wound in Abigail's neck. She couldn't know. He had to protect her from the man who still fucking yearned for a man capable of all that. A miserable, unstable fuck up too broken to date that could only be loved by someone equally as fucked up.

Molly was, had always been, above Will. She was whole where he was defective. 

"No! You didn't!" Molly's hand came across the table in a blur to sweep aside the photos, her shoulders trembling and her eyes watering. "You were too afraid to tell me anything and now you're too afraid to just be honest with me, Will. You're lying to me now! You aren't protecting me... you..." She stood up and walked over to the sink, leaning over it as her curls tumbled over her shoulder. Will's eyes automatically went to where Abigail sat on the floor smiling awkwardly at dinner and cringed. "This wasn't something you ever wanted to share. Those photos... that life. If I asked you to burn those photos, would you?"

"I...." The thought of holding Abigail over a flame and watching it lick and curl it to ash, the thought of burning her like Hannibal had done to their own past to start anew but with no future to grasp onto. He shook his head slowly.

"I can see the way you look at them. I'm not blind. Not anymore." Molly said slowly. Her gaze held her hurt but what Will feared was disgust as well. "Will they said you.. you... _ate someone_."

Will could still see Hannibal in another kitchen that was a complete negative of the kitschiness of theirs. Hannibal held the knife out to him to partake, to willingly slice up the tender flesh and gorge as two horrific monsters above men. There had been pride in Will's stomach, for the reeling in, of course, but beyond that. Hannibal trusted him, he was an equal. He had. He had eaten someone.

Plus Will couldn't say he could, or wanted to really, burn that past away. Will ran a clammy hand down his face as Molly watched his silence in horror.

A small noise left her as she bit down on her lip, revolted at the mere idea. There was a queasy look on her face she got when she watched slasher flicks or saw roadkill flattened and sprayed across hot pavement: she swallowed heavily and her eyebrows pulled together. "The reports, multiple reports, state you as the murderer for Randall Tier, a former patient of Hannibal Lecter. It says you... you fucking _dismembered_ him and mounted his corpse onto a museum exhibit. Will what are you trying to protect me from? From Lecter or from yourself?"

Lecter? Himself? Fucking both? Will shook, his hands curling to fists at his sides. He was a cornered animal, a feral fox with its leg caught in a trap. The wolf was nowhere nearby but he wanted it there to snap its neck and put him out of his misery as Molly kept poking at his sores to see how it would bleed. He could feel the tension tightening his body in flight or fight, the chemicals dilating his eyes and causing him to push himself back against the counter.

Molly hadn't seen him like this before and she noticed his stance and pulled back, staring. This wasn't her Will, this was some new shade of him she'd never seen before.

"So you did...." Molly breathed, astonished as Will struggled not to flee from the situation like he always wanted to do back in the FBI. Except this time he was back fixing boat motors and there was nowhere else to run to except to somewhere darker than this, where Molly's light wasn't scattering the cockroaches and revealing the monsters lumbering in the closet.

"It was only to act as a lure Molly... a lure to catch Hannibal!" Will snapped out as he gripped the countertop behind him to stop his hands from shaking. A drink would smooth them out, he knew.

"Well apparently you were his lover too!" Molly had had enough of his wounded animal bullshit and stalked forward and shoved Will angrily back against the counter, tears blurring her eyes. "All the reports say it. That doesn't sound like luring, or fishing or whatever the hell you think it was! Well?"

"I-"

"Did you have sex?"

"No!" Will watched her face go red as she fisted up his shirt, trying to hold onto something without having to touch the creature wearing Will's skin in front of her. They had never... hadn't... Hannibal had held him close, touched him in ways that were inappropriate for mere friends, had planned a life together, bandaged him, cooked together in a way that had felt more intimate than sex could ever be, but never sex.

"Did you love him and _don't you dare lie to me, Will_." Those words were the crescendo of her argument finally coming to point. It wasn't enough that he himself was a monster but that he had touched another with the hands that touched her, and loved someone so fiercely that was everything she wasn't. A monster, sub—or perhaps hypo—human. Will could see the anxiety in her eyes that Will hadn't done it for the police but that it had been for a desire so deeply rooted in Will that no matter what, he couldn't un-root it.

The uncoiling in his body finally came loose. He was back in the bathroom with Jack, the same sort of desperate, unstable movements. He came part, quivering and throwing his hands at Molly, yelling as the kitchen became a swirl of cheap plastic and black. "You weren't there Molly! You just can't fucking get it! So shut the fuck up with bullshit about how I've lied to you and didn't trust you. You want me to fucking trust you? Here you go." Will pushed forward, his voice wavering in pitch. "You weren't there... you haven’t had your friend Beverly cut up and pressed against slabs of glass like some experiment. You didn't have the closest thing you had to a daughter murdered in front of your eyes; have to somehow reassure her as she bleeds out while your god damn guts are spilling between your fingers. Or to be thrust into his head day after day and told to _look_ and to _look harder_."

No matter how hard he looked it was never enough and when he finally looked, saw and understood... then he was at fault?

Will paused to breathe raggedly, staring down at Molly he'd unknowingly corralled backwards. He loomed over her but the anger would not be doused by her gaze. "Molly you can't know what it's like to experience _any_ of this because you see in black and white. It's so fucking simple that way when people are either good or they're bad. You can't fucking fathom grey." There was condescension in his voice, so hard to shake and Molly only blinked slowly. "So yes!" If she wanted to hear it, if she wanted him to trust her she was going to see the shit she didn't want to see. These were the cockroaches Will harboured under his skin and saying it, truly for the first time, felt like cutting into his flesh and pulling each of their bloody wriggling bodies free. The world could do with them as they may, Will couldn't house them anymore. "I fucking did love him, Molly. I was manipulated, forced into it, depended on it and even wanted it; I didn't want you to know because you wouldn't understand, probably can't, even if I had told you because _You. Aren't. Broken_." Each word jumped out of his mouth, staccato and tight.

He was the broken china in the back of the cupboard, he was a teacup that was smashed to the floor by Hannibal and no kintsugi done by Molly would ever fully mend him.

Fuck, he could see that now.

His hands finally surged up to grab at the roots of his curls. Molly was silent, her firecracker of anger either having erupted into something much darker, or fizzling out to fear.

Looking down, it was a tangible mix of both. 

The room stayed quiet as Will breathed heavily, coming down off the spike of adrenaline pumping through his veins. His eyes followed Molly's hand as it lifted up and reared back to come across his cheek. It would be welcomed, and Will closed his eyes and braced for it. _Please, just fucking do it._ Smash him apart, hit him, break him. There was no way to take back the words he'd said and even if there was, would he want to? Instead, he wanted to feel Molly's anger and hatred come bearing down on his skin. 

The hand wavered uncertainly, losing its purpose and going slack. Molly's eyes were hidden by her fringe as she stared down at Will's stomach, unable to meet his gaze.

"Do it."

Her hand curled into a fist, deciding on a punch instead of a slap and quivered with the tightness in which she held it. When Molly finally spoke the words hit Will harder than her fist ever could have. "Do you still love him?"

Her words punched into his stomach and dragged his guts out to spill across the kitchen. It was so similar to the last time when he had had his vulnerability gutted from him, except this time blood did not soak through his fingers. Yet seeing the normally gentle Molly so horrified almost hurt more because of the implications that curled fist sporting an engagement ring meant.

Did he still love Hannibal? What sort of sick creature could? What monster could look at the man who insisted he loved Will and then killed their daughter in a tantrum of hurt? Who ate people and considered it just? It was all so fucking grey, but Will could remember scrubbing his skin raw with cheap motel soap trying to wash the guilt away, of the intense hatred that could never be just that. It was explicable, but not inextricable.

Hands smoothing over his split knuckles, Abigail choking on blood, those same hands grasping his face so adoringly as he slipped the gun from Will's hand, Beverly sliced open, love letters in the form of dismembered bodies on both ends, fragmented flickers of light and a tube stretching open his throat, watching meat slip through thin lips, antlers splitting through his skin, small, half-hearted hands caressing his scar turning to larger, tender touches, Abigail on the beach speaking Italian and salt coating the inside of Will's mouth and nose. 

"Yes." Will breathed out into the dead silence in the kitchen. "Yes, I do."

The hand lowered, disappeared to her side and Will watched her step aside, building space between them that separated Will from the smell of peaches and the touch of pin-pricked fingers. 

Her eyes blinked once, twice and settled her gaze evenly on Will.

"Then get the hell out of this house."

 

______________

 

There on the opposite side of the road Will could see their silvering wooden house, a tiny ramshackle rowboat out on the water. This was how he feared remembering the end of Sugarloaf; lights slowly flicking off with Molly's ascent to the upstairs bedroom, Molly inside and Will on the outside, the lower lights turning off to look like the boat was sinking into the dark sea of night, his normal life disappearing into the darkness along with it.

His older trailer full of dog hair and smelling like mothballs by the marina was long gone and without a friend to visit, Will retreated to the only place that would not question his presence alone at that time of night. He would go anywhere but _there._  

Will made his way into town and into the nearest bar for a heavy, thick bourbon. Or five.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god. The fact that you are reading this means you didn't 100% give up on this story. Bless your soul and your face for believing that there would be another chapter. 
> 
> I really hope you liked this climatic scene between Molly and Will... Of course Will will now do the sensible thing and go get a few drinks and sleep it off in a cheap motel. Ha. As if. 
> 
> I was fortunately to have two lovely betas from Tumblr: theteacupshatters and captainshiboo so thank you to the moon and back for your help. 
> 
> Leave a comment if you enjoyed it because there is nothing an author loves more than to see people enjoying their work. Think of it as donating a smile. :) 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


	5. Jasmine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will is drunk and wanting. For what, he is not quite sure.

Poor decision making landed Will in the lobby of the Four Seasons hotel reeking of alcohol. He teetered amongst the millionaire retirees arriving after late night flights from Seattle in their private jets, with their wives on their arms wearing Prada and Jimmy Choo. Bellhops scurried by with carts full of Louis Vutton monogrammed cases and the concierge stood attentive with Godivia chocolates in crystal bowls beside their computers.

It was opulent, almost ridiculously so with the chandelier that hung near the grand staircase and the all marble floors. Everything was white because they could afford to maintain it so without it greying or yellowing with dirt and age respectively. 

Of course he would choose this hotel.

Will made a face as he bumped into a suited man and didn't bother apologizing as the man grimaced at the stink of alcohol and murmured angrily at his partner. Social grace be damned.

Every part of Will had gone numb, so the words were barely considered as he approached the one empty concierge booth managed by a college freshman over-polished and dressed to appear trustworthy and beyond his years. Despite that he was covered in acne.

"Hello... sir... what can I do for you?" He used the word consciously and turned to look at the others tending to customers. So he was new and already seeking the protocol for dealing with wasted scum like Will that happened to drift in and mark up the buffered marble floors. Excellent. It wasn’t as if one of the other overqualified professional ass-kissers were going to give him the information he needed.

Will leaned on the counter, overextending across in an effort to take up room and look imposing. "Lecter, Hannibal. Is he still staying here?" The words were a little slurred despite Will's attempts to school them into coherence. He shouldn't be here, he should be in a motel and far, far away from the very reason he couldn't go home, not actively seeking him out. But his skin was hot, his eyes burning in his skull and every inch of him seeking Hannibal for a myriad of reasons. The most prominent was alcohol-fueled fury. Fury for ever meeting him, for twisting his peaceful life out of control and coming back to ensure he could never be happy again. He had been pissed off during his second bourbon, distraught over Molly on his third and ready to grovel, but he was horny by his fourth, and on his fifth it was back to fury. The sixth gave him the courage to pay his tab and stumble towards the hotel with no real goal in mind but a stomach full of emotions and a brain screaming to find Hannibal. And do what exactly? Will hadn't gotten that far yet.

The boy's hands hovered of the keyboard as he stared at the other concierges in worry. They were too absorbed in dealing with pricks wanting free room upgrades and in-room champagne. "I'm... not supposed to say... for privacy reasons." He made out, his nervous gaze flicking from the computer to Will and back again. "Sometimes people come here and a jealous husband or wife could come and try to hurt them, or it could be someone coming to extort someone else or... well... you know... So I can't really give you that information." He over explained, likely listing the scenarios he was told in training, which Will had to guess had only happened a few days before.

Will closed his eyes for a moment, feigning a headache and tried to empathize with the boy. First, no second, day of work in a place far too fancy for some gator wrestling everglade boy like him, but fuck he got the job and here was this drunk asshole making his job hard already. He was not supposed to give the information but they also told him to "value all customers" and to do what they say. He needed this job, it paid well and he couldn't afford to lose it.

Will opened his eyes and looked down at the nametag sitting on the tweed vest. "Jacob," Will started, shaking his head slowly and pulling out the condescension those in power all seemed to possess, "look if you refuse to provide me service then I want to speak to your manager and personally complain for your poor service. I have stayed here during my finance conferences and will take my business elsewhere if you refuse to answer a simple question for me. Can you not answer a yes or no question, boy? Are you stupid?"

For six bourbons it wasn't half bad.

"I... uhm..."

"Incapable of speech as well it seems."

"Sir, I really can't."

"Out of a suit or in a suit I could have you fired in a moment's notice."

"Ah..." The boy looked nervously at the others and then back at the screen and then slowly clicked in the name, each letter of Hannibal's name being entered with great trepidation. Will could see a bit of sweat on his brow, his eyes hyper focused on the small bit of dew as the golden wall behind Jacob's head bent and swirled. "You did not hear it from me, but yes... Mr. Lecter is still here. I can’t say anything else."

Will tilted his head and the entire world shifted and made his stomach lurch.

"Good, thank you. Much obliged."

Then he was off towards the elevators, jamming at the up button until the outer ring lit blue. When two elevators opened, Will got into the one on the left while everyone else got into the one on the right. He clicked the penthouse, since Hannibal would most certainly accept no less, as nerves bundled inside him.

There was an image he had had years before of his bloody hands wrapped around antlers that belonged to Randall Tier. That image blurred and morphed into a bloody Hannibal as it had then and Will remembered the satisfying feeling of flesh giving way under his fists as he punched that fucking awful smile over and over again. With Hannibal between his legs as Will panted and Hannibal gave a sharp groan, it had been oddly arousing. He grunted and sweated, his veins jumping with excitement as he finally grasped the antlers again and pulled hard to break his neck, the tendons in his arms cording until finally there was a satisfying snap. 

Perhaps Jacob the concierge had the right idea to worry. 

He'd promised to kill Hannibal with his hands for the intimacy of the action and that violent sense of intimacy quelled both of the fires currently burning up inside Will. Fine, there, he finally had a motive to be standing there wasted and wanting.

With a new sense of purpose, Will walked into the small landing that led to the penthouse door and then hammered it with the side of his fist.

"Just a moment." Hannibal said softly from behind the door and Will felt a jolt of electricity shoot down his spine at the sound. His hands curled into fists, his jaw set and teeth grinding.

When the door was opened, Hannibal stood in nothing but a silk, maroon bathrobe with a damp cloud of perfume that hung to his shower-warmed skin. In one hand was the doorknob, in the other a glass of red wine. His face attempted to look shocked, to his credit, but Will could see the infuriating twitch at the corner of his mouth that screamed, 'I've been expecting you'. Like this was all his fucking idea and Will just continued to be tugged along by his strings. This was all part of his design and Will was just a drunken idiot, a fucking idiot.

"It's rather late Will, don't you think?" And yet he stepped aside and left the door to walk back into the penthouse. When Will silently breached the door he felt the warm imprints of Hannibal's bare footprints against the tiled entryway and stumbled after the scent of jasmine.

It was just as ostentatious as the rest of the hotel with black hardwood stretching through the rest of the apartment, cool marble countertops, and purposefully eclectic furniture and vases filled with vanilla scented pinecones. It was pulled right out of a housing magazine and designed by a twenty something interior designer to resemble the ideal house, but never housing someone long enough to break it in and feel worn. Hannibal looked at peace in the kitchen as he poured Will a glass of water in the deep, fishbowl-sized glasses.

"I would pour you a glass of wine, but it seems you've had your fill of alcohol for the evening. So please excuse the discourtesy." Hannibal spun his own glass and scented it from afar before taking a long sip and moving into the living room. Will wanted to smash it up into his face. 

The windows stretched wide and showed the small clusters of light belonging to the bits of life in Sugarloaf. It was so different from Baltimore where even he could have pinpointed the thousand yellow dots of angry, weaving taxicabs. It had been like a cross-stitch of the cars, the white lights and stretches and stretches of that light polluted oxford blue. Instead, in Sugarloaf the sky was painted a dark, endless navy.

Hannibal leaned against the window with his robe opening just enough to expose a path of leg, looking just as much a part of the painting here in Sugarloaf as in Baltimore.

One of the fires in Will's belly flickered up, threatening to consume the other. "And what do I owe this pleasure, William?"

He should have snatched Hannibal's face between his fists, and smashed it back into the glass of Sugarloaf. He'd make a spectacular crime scene for the police to clean up at the bottom of the Four Seasons. Or he could punch his face in, coat his knuckles in blood again and lean in to draw his tongue along the red streaks, tasting iron. Then maybe he'd dig his nails into the bruised cheekbones and force his tongue inside that awful mouth of his that fed him false pleasantries. 

The bourbon turned his body to liquid and he stumbled forward towards Hannibal, intent on doing something. 

"You. Always you." Will rasped out desperately. "Why can't you just leave me alone? I was happy."

Hannibal didn’t need to be caught up to speed about what this was in regards to and without missing a beat he responded. "Stagnation breeds normality. You don't want to be normal Will." Hannibal didn't even have the decency to pose it as a question. He looked over Will, at his disheveled outfit, wild eyes, and unstable gait and his eyes crinkled fondly like Will was some cute, stupid animal doing amusing tricks for him.

"What if I do? What if I want to be normal? I don't want to keep having nightmares and feeling this fucking fucked up." 

Hannibal looked up properly as Will panted heavily and then tilted his head to somehow better observe him and find something other than the mess in front of him. Wet, silvered dirty blond hair fell to stroke along his forehead and Hannibal took a long sip. Will watched his throat work through the wine. "Take a breath Will and lower your voice. This is a hotel not your isolated house in Wolf Trap where you can bellow to your hearts content."

Will instinctively listened and took a deep breath.

Hannibal nodded his approval and took another sip of wine before adding, "If you wanted to be normal, you wouldn't be here."

Will's next deep breath caught in his throat. 

He couldn’t say things like that.

He thought of Molly back at home on their bed, curled up with the dogs as she cried into their fur. Every photo of them would either be smashed or turned down and Jillian would drive over in her Prius and braid Molly's curls with her long acrylic nails while spitting venom about Will. He should have turned around the moment he left the house and gone right back in to apologize and yet here he was in front of Hannibal in the penthouse, watching him tilt and observe, drink and breathe, still playing his game. It was his move.

Will’s entire body shook with rage, with the need to pound Hannibal's face something unidentifiable, to choke him between his hands until his dark eyes rolled back, to push back the robe and press up against him and to grasp at the last dying embers of his old, dead reality and find them hot and burning in Hannibal's mouth. 

Between their tongues he could feed one of the fires in his stomach.

"Fuck you." Will snarled before throwing the wine glass across the room. It exploded into shards near a red painting and soaked into the wallpaper. It was loud enough to earn a sharp inhale from Hannibal. Good. Will surged forward and knocked the other expensive glass of wine from Hannibal's hands. He wasn’t allowed to just stand there and sip away and contemplate the vintage like he was detached from all of this. The sharp slices of glass crunched under Will’s alcohol-numbed feet and he bled into the wine, his hands curling into the maroon robe.

"I define my own reality." Will growled out, his entire being wild, the feral fox going for the throat of the larger beast, the larger monster. 

Hannibal’s mouth opened to retort but Will would deny him that pleasure if nothing else.

His mouth fell hard onto Hannibal's, his teeth immediately finding his thin bottom lip and digging into it to draw blood. It took only a moment of Will dragging Hannibal closer for the man to spur into his own action. Large arms encircled him and pulled him up and tighter to meld them together and share the heat being volleyed back and forth between their tongues.

Will knew objectively that Hannibal could be sexual, but despite his own mounting darkness Will refused to give a voice to, he had never been able to picture what shape it would take. 

Hannibal was a force, a wave that washed over Will and filled every small chip and crack in him. His breath was coughed out of his lungs when Hannibal turned him around and pushed him against the glass painting of sleepy Sugarloaf and then refused him breath with his insistent mouth.

There was an urgency that Will had never thought Hannibal could possess, but it was in Will as well; a shared feeling that made his quivering hands shake harder and claw at the back of Hannibal's shoulders. 

"You smell of peaches." Hannibal murmured against him and Will felt sick I'm the pit of his stomach.

Of course he could smell it, of course he could.

Will couldn't bear to smell of Molly, of what he was leaving behind for this. "Then make me smell like you." Will breathed out as he shrugged off his jacket to the soaked floor and then swallowed as Hannibal's nose followed the muscles of his throat, scenting him the whole way up.

His legs were threatening to give way so Hannibal used his leg to keep him upright. It seemed to be all part of some intricate plan beyond Will’s comprehension because Hannibal kept shifting forward, dragging his naked leg between Will's jean-clad ones until the older man had rubbed his leg raw and Will was chasing him with his hips, canting and dizzy. The need was manifesting into something embarrassing and pushing against the zipper of his jeans.

The room blurred and bent as Hannibal pulled his shirt off and let Will pull the robe from him with excited, clumsy hands. 

He'd never been with a man before in any capacity, frankly had never felt any desire to except for the monster before him and as he stared at the half hard cock between Hannibal's legs he made a stressed noise in the back of his throat. It was a cock, it was dumb to think Hannibal would have anything but, but it was there and growing more erect Hannibal watched him look on in shock. The tip was red, but not insistent or angry like Will's when he was aroused but instead it looked warm and heavy to the touch. He wanted to touch it. He actually wanted to feel him.

"I..." Will made out as his nails pressed crescents into Hannibal's shoulders.

"I know." Hannibal gave one of his micro-smirks despite the situation and it caused Will to scowl and drag his nails along Hannibal's back to leave swollen streaks. How could he know? How could he understand anything that was occurring in Will’s head in that moment? Will barely understood what was happening.

The world around him continued to swirl and bend and the apartment became a hazy mess of black, white, and red. Pain surged under his feet and then there was softness under his back and a new coolness along his legs. It was a bed.

Hannibal tossed his jeans aside and Will didn't even think to cover his cock as Hannibal observed it. There were one too many bourbons in his system to have any real sense of decency. Hannibal plucked up Will's leg by the calf and examined the bleeding foot with small pieces of glass still embedded into it like he was some patient. There was some playful doctor bullshit just sitting on Will’s lips waiting to be spewed.

"You bleed on this bed and you will foot the bill." 

Will hissed as Hannibal pushed at one shard in particular. Asshole. A swift kick was caught by Hannibal's other hand and his legs hung suspended in his arms. Slowly, Hannibal pulled his arms apart and spread Will out on the bed below him. There was nothing left to hide, no part of him too dirty or too broken for Hannibal and there was even a satisfaction in the way Hannibal seemed to lose himself for a moment at the sight. The perfect, prim Hannibal was being plucked apart by the sight of Will in his hands and open to him. The last time he’d been privy to this version of Hannibal had been on another night full of touches that reeked of intimacy and proved to end in nothing but blood. Perhaps they would get it right this time and instead go in reverse.

"Has anyone touched you here before?." Hannibal let his unbloodied foot drop down to the hotel bed and then pushed the bloody, wine-stained foot back to touch his knee to his chest. God, he didn't even have the decency to act embarrassed, like he didn’t want this at all, and instead Will licked his lips hungrily. The un-used tendons in the dips of his thighs strained and then tightened as the pad of Hannibal's finger touched him.

“No.” Will hissed out, his legs trying to pry out of Hannibal’s hands more for show. The finger circled slowly around his entrance, pressing into the tight ring only enough to cause Will to shiver, but not enough to ache. His toes curled whilst Hannibal gave it a teasing, almost playful, little tap. What the fuck was he doing?

“Well that does not seem fair. Taking your pleasure of your wife, but never allowing her the same delicacy.” Will gritted his teeth at the mere mention of Molly, but his jaw set further when the finger breached the tight ring of muscles. Hannibal turned his head to observe the way Will spasmed. “But you’ll allow me to take my pleasure of you, won’t you Will?”

Will’s mouth hung open, and he tried to make a noise. Preferably something clever to knock the doctor off kilter, but instead an aroused noise crawled up his throat as he imagined Hannibal using him up like Molly never could have dreamed of: forcing Will to choke out noises into the sheets, tearing up the skin of his thighs with bruises and cuts, and fucking him raw until Will felt nothing anymore but pain. He deserved to be used like the broken thing he was. He deserved that much after what he’d done and what they were about to do.

"But you have done it yourself?"

Hannibal’s tone was still that curious, collected tone he used in therapy. He asked Will if he fingered himself like he asked him about his mother’s absence during his childhood and despite the tone, the indifference felt good. He was going to do this to him regardless. This was as inevitable as breathing.

Will slowly nodded in response. In college years before he'd stumbled upon an article advising guys to finger themselves to get an explosive high when orgasming. Well, they weren't entirely wrong.

Will’s answer suited Hannibal and fingers sunk deeper into him, skin pulling against skin. It lasted long enough to pull a groan from Will but then Hannibal was gone. Suddenly with the absence of touches, Will writhed in the expensive sheets to feel it smooth against his back, to have some sort of sensation against his booze-warmed skin. He should have just waited until Hannibal returned and then kicked his cock hard. There was still time to right this. Maybe. There was a belt in his jeans and maybe if he could reach it he could—... but it smelt like jasmine and patchouli everywhere and it was distracting. It was an odd mix that was less pungent than Hannibal himself but embedded so deep into the fibers from the monster slumbering there night after night. Instead of being repulsed by it, Will fisted the scented sheets tightly and breathed in deep.

"Warn me first!" Will yelped as a cool slickness was spread between his legs and Hannibal pulled his wrist from the bed and directed it down between his legs.

"Show me, show me how you do it then."

“Excuse me?” 

“Show me.”

Show him how he fucked himself back in college? He wouldn't.

Except he did. In the fogginess and inhibition of the bourbon Will just laid there and fingered himself while Hannibal watched on hungrily. Maybe he was debasing himself on purpose, like somehow fucking himself with one—now two fingers—for Hannibal was going to cure him of the guilt that would come and go and rise and recede with every whiff of peaches or thought of intimacy with Molly. Maybe if he just ruined himself enough and let Hannibal ruin him once and for all then he could either be too broken for her and done with Hannibal (then he'd hitchhike to god knows where, maybe Louisiana), or somehow by the “divine power” of Hannibal’s cock he’d be cured. Cured of whatever this thing was.

Except it felt good. Really, really good. And there he was writhing around, groaning out for Hannibal to touch him like no grown man should. It was needy as hell.

“Hannibal, hell, just please please cum in me already.” He pleaded as he scissored his fingers, opening him up with the slickness of the lube. “I’m begging you. This is degrading.”

“Begging doesn’t suit you Will.” His long fingers moved to run through his sweaty locks. Hannibal pressed them back to get a better look at Will’s face. “Your eyes are hazy. Is this the real Will Graham when inhibitions are peeled away?” Was what crawled out of the chrysalides disappointing Hannibal? Had alcohol turned him into a moth instead of the pretty little butterfly he wanted to stab a pin through?

“I need to beg. You won’t touch me properly.” Will whined, his gaze flicking downwards. Hannibal’s cock was thick and hard between his legs and Will didn’t know if it was going to hurt or feel disgusting, but both of those sensations were preferable to the emptiness he was feeling. “You won’t fuck me.” 

Hannibal’s eyes fluttered closed at the sound of those words leaving Will’s lips. 

“Use me up, fuck me hard… I don’t care if you think I’m pathetic. I need you to break me apart, right now. Please Hannibal. Break me.” His voice hitched as his fingers brushed up against his prostate but couldn’t go deep enough to hit it.

Something in Hannibal changed, Will could see it. His clinical expression faltered, his indifference slipping. Finally.

Except it didn’t slip into something harder with the ability to deliver Will everything he desired. Instead it softened, sweetened. There wasn’t a trace of pity in the softness though, no amount of mockery. Will’s legs fell slack and slipped apart as Hannibal slid in between them, supporting himself over Will. He was still a force, and despite being similar in size, Hannibal felt larger than life there, naked, poised and swirling from the booze.

“No. I won’t.”

A pathetic whimper got choked in Will’s throat. Why not? His hand pulled out of himself with a small slick noise below them. 

“I refuse to be used by you again, do you understand that?” 

Used? Will wanted to laugh. As if Hannibal could ever be used to any extent for a purpose other than his own. “I’m not using you.” He begged to differ.

“Oh but you are. Right now you are.” His free hand caught Will’s chin in his hand and turned his face aside to inspect the blush flushing from his ears down to his collarbones. Will’s neck tightened as he twisted his face the other way and observed him again with tight dark eyes, looking for something inside his expression. “I am not here to absolve you, nor will I break you beyond repair for your self-indulgent desire to be masochistic.”

“It’s not—“

“But it is.” Hannibal corrected him before he could fully retort. He still smiled though with his thin lips, as if he was chastising a child. “This is between yourself and myself. Not for your guilt, not for her. Need I remind you of what my feelings were and still are for you?”

No, he certainly didn’t need to be told that. Will knew quite well where they both stood. He gave a quick shake of his head, finally feeling the wash of shame for his begging come belatedly.

“I refuse to let you make this about your guilt.” 

“Oh.” The head of Hannibal’s cock nudged up against him and Will stared down between them, past his own insistently red cock and down to the thatch of blond hair. There, his cock was almost where Will needed it to be right then.

“Remind me why you want this Will.” Hannibal asked between open-mouthed kisses that trailed down Will’s neck and then turned to a harsh suck.

“Tease.” Will bit back with a ghost of a laugh as he spread his wet fingers through his hair and tightened in his curls. Did he really have to say it? 

When Hannibal turned his gaze to him expectantly Will swallowed hard with a click. There was the faintest bit of pink on his high cheekbones and those normally laser-point-focused eyes seemed lost trying to trace every bit of Will, from his thoroughly-kissed lips to the dark bags under his eyes from recent nights of restless sleep, trying to memorize him like this. Here he had finally come willingly.

“I need you, Hannibal. I want you. Just you. I- jesusfuckingchrist.” Will arched high off the bed sighing as Hannibal pressed in, met resistance, and sunk in deep with a few slow thrusts. Holy shit. Holy shit. There was a dick inside him.

“Are you alright?” Hannibal breathed out, his voice thick and the arm holding himself up shaking just a little.

It felt strange to have something pressing up inside of him, but it was like Hannibal was scratching an itch that Will could never reach. It hurt, but not necessarily in a bad way. “Perfect. Just perfect. Don’t stop.”

It struck him, after Will’s heels dug into the small of Hannibal’s back to draw him closer, and his hands wove in Hannibal’s hair just to feel it turn wry and messy under his touch, that this felt familiar. Surely it was different than him rutting into Molly and then licking her clit softly until she was shaking as way of apology for coming too soon (but really he couldn’t bare to think of that right now). Hannibal’s greying chest hair brushed up against his and that was certainly a new sensation, and yet Will kept pushing them closer as if somehow by slipping his legs around Hannibal’s waist or kissing deep enough to touch his molars, they could meld together. With enough heat and force they would melt and reassemble as one. Hannibal bucked, Will stole his groan with a hot kiss, he praised Will as he reached for Will’s cock and seemed to caress it, it was all rather soft, full-bodied and…

It felt an awful lot like making love.

“There. Again, god Hannibal.” Will praised him loudly as Hannibal’s cock hit his prostate and a swift wave of pleasure rolled through his body. It was good; it was so fucking good. 

Will’s nails found Hannibal’s back. Hannibal’s teeth found Will’s bottom lip. Both sets of hands reached out for one another in ways each had dreamed of but had been denied. Will leaned into the hand cupping his chin, Hannibal threw his head back just to hit the hands holding tight around his neck.

“I love you.” Hannibal growled up into his ear as his bed rocked hard against the wall. Will’s thighs tightened, Hannibal brought his hand around to Will’s tip to twist.

Their lovemaking—Will couldn’t safely call it anything but—slowed down for those words. Now Will could feel the sweat slipping down to the hollow of his throat, could properly taste the wine on Hannibal’s tongue, and sense every nerve on his lips dance as Hannibal panted against them. Each drag of their bodies was agonizingly perfect. 

Every one of Will’s limbs unfurled as Hannibal just kept up that slow pace inside and outside him. Immediately after a sharp slap hit his haunches, followed by a breathy and darkly amused, "what did I say about bleeding on the bed Will?" Hannibals hand on his cock tightened until it hurt but instead of feeling frightened by the unspoken threat Will only groaned louder. Even in this, he was still the Hannibal of propriety and cleanliness. Will was being fucked whole bodied by him.

And sure, he was drunk but that didn’t excuse the way his eyes start to cloud soon after. Crying during sex? What, was he a fifteen year old virgin? What in gods name was Hannibal doing to him? 

A pained laugh escaped him as he fisted up the sheets in his hands. It really wasn't the sex exactly that made him want to cry though, it was the image that wouldn’t stop insisting on being seen. 

The rain drizzled slowly over top of the wide-open windows that let in the sweet summer air perfumed from its journey across vineyards and orchards. Abigail was sound asleep already, tucked in bed with Will’s red and white spaniel warming her feet. Here in their home they were free to touch each other slowly with time on their side. In the dark Hannibal held Will close as he rocked up and down in Hannibal’s lap sighing out every time his lover, maybe fiancé, filled him. They kissed with lips still tasting of their shared dinner of some ostentatious Italian delicacy washed down with fine wine. They were both tanned ridiculously dark and their hands were worn from tending to the vineyard. Those hands map out each other’s familiar bodies and their lips whispered their thanks.

That was why the tightness in Will’s chest threatened to choke him now back in Sugarloaf in the hotel bed. While their reality in Florence was dead this reality with Hannibal wasn’t.

As Will’s voice climbed and he struggled to keep up to Hannibal’s pounding rhythm, he knew that Molly was gone after this. Her soft unsure touches were being erased from his skin, the scent of peaches being replaced with jasmine.

“Hannibal, I’m going to come. Shit, I’m coming.” Will’s voice broke as it climbed, but Hannibal had him. 

"Let go, Will. I have you." Hannibal had him. He was real and physical and even if Will let everything around him crumble to the ground, Hannibal would still remain. That much was now clear.

The words were the last push he needed to teeter over the precipice and fall into the warmth that was spreading from head to toe. Hannibal held him close and carried him through the climax that rocked through him. It was stronger than Will ever remembered coming and the sticky mess instantly was coating his stomach. The ceiling was still bending but everything felt loose and warm, like he was floating in a warm bath. A grunt followed shortly after and Will’s eyes fluttered back open as the new sensation of being filled greeted him.

Somewhere in the darkness swallowing up Will’s vision there was the dark wolf and fox. The shadows danced together until they melded into something larger, some new beast that didn’t yet have a name.

The darkness was closing off his vision and Will relaxed and let himself sink further into its warm embrace. He welcomed it.

“I love you too.” Will mumbled before he sunk into the inky darkness until it covered even the top of his nose and tops of his toes. He sunk right to the bottom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, I told you it wouldn't be as long of a wait this time :). I only have one more chapter planned. I know you are pretty surprised it is ending so soon but I can assure you it has a good reason!!
> 
> You guys have been amazing throughout this entire process with crazy long and lovely reviews. I can't thank you enough for supporting me with this fic. It has a weirdly special place in my heart.
> 
> Also please excuse any formatting issues or lack of italics... I'm posting from Croatia on an iPad so the formatting is crap. Thank you though for my amazing beta theteacupshatters who points out all my wonky writing!
> 
> So as always let me know what you think, especially now that the babies have done "the do".


	6. Little Pig

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What was propriety to a monster anyways?"

Will assumed he would have been far more horrified when he woke up in the morning, and far more hungover than the headache that was beating in the back of his skull and the dull pain under his feet throbbing with a steadiness that was easy to ignore. 

There wasn’t the initial shock and vertigo that came with not knowing where Will was and the scrambling that happened in his brain to piece together the night. He knew exactly where he was and why. He was with Hannibal in a hotel room and they had had sex the night before.

And Will was surprisingly okay with that.

“So this is what the prim and proper Doctor Lecter looks like in the morning.” Will murmured quietly as he moved closer under the starched hotel sheets towards the warm body shielding the incoming morning light. After one small kiss, Will huffed. “And bad morning breath just like everyone else, too. Shocking.”

The most shocking thing really was that Hannibal wasn’t already up with a five-course breakfast prepared with flowers in a vase. Not that Will wanted any of that, he didn’t at all, but it seemed so unorthodox for Hannibal to simply be sleeping in.

“Will.” Hannibal said firmly as if Will was a small puppy tugging at an older dog’s ears. He finally propped himself up an elbow to stare at the younger man. His translucent brows pulled together. “You’re…”

“Okay with this and not freaking out? Yeah, I know.” Will rolled onto his back as his foot stuck out of the covers. By all accounts he should have felt absolutely disgusted with himself and ready to run back to Molly with his tail between his legs. What was wrong with him? Except Will already knew what was wrong with him. It was what drove him to Hannibal time after time. There was something wrong with him. 

“I love her.” No matter what his decisions were he still felt his skin prickle at the idea of saying her name to Hannibal. He held his hand up in front of him and stared up at the finger where a golden band would have been sitting in a few days but would now forever stay barren. “But I know that she’s better off without me. I’ve ruined her life enough as it is.” He sighed and let the hand drop down to cover his eyes and rub at his temples. The headache was a bit worse than he had originally thought. “She doesn’t deserve any of this shit.”

She didn’t deserve Will crawling back on his hands and knees after sleeping in a fellow monster’s bed, smelling like Hannibal with bruises on his thighs. How could Will try to make amends with her and marry her when he knew that no amount of sweet tea or smiles could ever fix the rotten hole in him or now in their relationship. “She deserves better.” And who knew if she’d even want him back after all she knew.

The older man’s hand fell down to trace down the shell of Will’s ear as he stared over at him. It felt wrong to lie there and bask in Hannibal’s undivided attention when Molly was probably curled up in bed feeling like bleaching off her own skin for ever having touched and loved Will. Here he was, happy, when he had made Molly absolutely miserable. He’d dragged her into this and it wouldn’t be fair to keep tugging her along on some pretence that it was the “proper” thing to do. What was propriety to a monster anyways? 

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t as okay with this as he’d first thought.

“You deserve whatever happiness you desire, Will.” Hannibal finally spoke after tracing the same patch of skin over and over again. “Life offers us so few chances to be truly happy. You should leave Molly to find her own happiness as well. Not to do so would be cruel.”

“Am I that transparent?” Will laughed sourly and turned over towards Hannibal and then buried his nose against the silvering chest hair that he had already grown fond of. It tickled his nose but smelt distinctly masculine, and Will was also growing weirdly fond of that aspect as well. He huffed out against the hairs. 

“You are always transparent, except when you are not.” Hannibal’s hands strayed away from his ear to continue his stroking along Will’s cheekbone and then slowly he grazed his nails over the stubble. It felt good. “Give both her and yourself time to adjust to this reality. It will take time, but do not deny yourself pleasure as you adjust in some self-inflicted starvation. I won’t allow it.”

“Says the king of gluttony. You are not someone to be talking about never denying yourself. You did that Hannibal and look where that got you.” Will’s brows furrowed but Hannibal’s fingers were quick to press down and then work out the crease. A little more restraint would have allowed them, Abigail included, to have left together.

Hannibal’s hand drifted further down again to trace over Will’s collarbones and down to his chest. It felt strangely vulnerable to then turn to lie on his back. He was opening himself up to the touches, welcoming Hannibal to explore the body he’d hurt so thoroughly before.

He paused to give Will a purposeful look over. “Look indeed.” It would have almost sounded lecherous from anyone else, but coming from Hannibal’s thin lips as he smiled, it sounded rather sweet. 

Will’s mouth parted and he breathed shallowly as Hannibal’s hand slipped down and then with the very tip of his finger he touched the edge of Will’s scar. He gave him permission with a small nod and then Hannibal’s fingers slipped down so that every fingertip was spread out across the puckered and pink scar. A long breath escaped from Hannibal as he slowly traced the scar back and forth.

Looking up, Will gazed up at the older man as he took his handiwork in. Just what was he thinking? Was it pride for having hurt Will so thoroughly? Regret for not having the composure to spare both Abigail and Will’s stomach? There had been a time when Will had been so in tune to Hannibal, had seen so many horrors in his brain and nested in it that he could have known what sort of expression he was sporting. Now though with the tethers snipped and only now beginning to repair, it felt like radio silence as Hannibal kissed his way down his front and began to worship the scar, now with his lips.

“I can’t read you.” Will admitted sullenly as Hannibal’s lips laid another tiny kiss against the scar as he leaned over his stomach. Will’s fingers plucked up the wrist not acting as Hannibal’s pillar and then gazed at the scars he’d given Hannibal, albeit not personally, in return. When Will looked at Hannibal’s scars pride bubbled in his stomach at the sight of them. He had surprised Hannibal Lecter, had for the first time truly let him see what he was capable of doing. The scars were a sign that Will had tried to kill him, to become someone just as dangerous as he was—an equal.

“I’m just admiring your doctor’s handiwork. It’s not nearly as disfiguring as I imagined it would be. He must have had a steady hand.” Hannibal replied, only really half answering the question. 

“He did.” Will huffed. When Hannibal pressed an open mouthed kiss right at the mouth of the scar, where it was widest, he felt a tightness coil in his stomach. Will’s fingers brushed back Hannibal’s hair to get a better look as he gave it a few more kisses. It was an extremely tender gesture from the person who had ripped his insides apart, and it was a testament to Will’s character when he smiled at the display.

“Now, are we going to sit in bed all morning kissing each other scars like this is some Nicholas Sparks novel?” Will snorted. He doubted Hannibal even know who Nicholas Sparks was. He was no Dante or Blake.

Hannibal grinned against his scar and then finally withdrew to kiss his lips softly. “I believe we both have better taste than that.” There was a knock on the door that stole their attention. “And I do believe that is the room service I ordered while you were sleeping. I hope you don’t mind that I did not cook. This was one of the few times in my life where the company was far more appealing than the food.”

“You’re embarrassing.” Will finally sat up in bed and watched the hard line of Hannibal’s back as he swept his robe back on and went out of the penthouse’s bedroom in search of their food. 

God, his ass hurt. When he shifted in the bed to kick the rest of the covers off, it felt pretty sticky too. Did women have to go through this whenever guys came in them? Even though it was disgusting, Will still found himself pressing his fingers against himself to feel the tackiness. It was physical proof that the night before had really happened.

Will was lounging in boxer briefs across the bed when Hannibal returned, somewhat less gross and having pissed in the adjacent bathroom where there were three types of luxury body shop soaps. His hands now smelt like mojitos and he couldn’t stop sniffing them. 

“Apple strudel crepes, croissants with redcurrant jam, poached eggs, two cups of French press, fresh squeezed Florida orange juice, and a bottle of champagne.“ Hannibal announced the foods like he always did despite it not being his own works. He brought the large tray to the bed and Will simply gawked at the champagne. “Champagne? It’s, what, eleven am?” He had become one of those pricks with room service champagne.

“It’s never too early to celebrate.” Hannibal chided as he opened up the different steam lids to expose the ridiculously ornate presentation. There were apples meticulously carved into swans by the crepes and the poached eggs were nested in some sort of alfalfa so it looked like the swan’s nest. “If you feel inclined, I ordered the orange juice to mix into the champagne for a mimosa if you so please.”

“And what are celebrating exactly?” Will eyed the food and then swept up some coffee to sip at first. It had been a while since he was exposed to Hannibal’s expensive tastes. It would take some getting used to, and he would probably have to get a new haircut to match Hannibal in taste again. He wasn’t a fan of being some backwoods redneck in comparison, especially if they planned to spend an extended period of time together. 

Hannibal popped the champagne and poured out two glasses. He hovered over Will’s glass with some orange juice until he was given the okay to pour some in. Actually, upon tasting it, even with the coffee taste still in his mouth the champagne and orange juice was pretty good. 

“We are celebrating the future this morning and we will toast to the fact that we are given another opportunity for one.” Hannibal took up his own glass and then raised his to clink against Will's. 

"I can toast to that." His smile was lopsided as Will stared down at the glass and Hannibal sipped beside him. It was hard to pin down exactly how he was supposed to feel right now. He felt good though and grateful for the chance he never thought would present itself again, especially when the pieces seemed to slot together rather well despite the mess with Molly. So he'd stick with happy. Happy was more than Will could have ever hoped for.

They sat in bed picking at the spread, breaking the poached eggs and dismembering the swans to run their sweet wings in the jam. It was unsurprisingly delicious and Will accepted the pieces that Hannibal fed to him and gave his fingers a nice suck in return. They navigated their meal together effortlessly and even the transition to the bath was seamless. Their bodies were a part of a dance neither of them had to acknowledge. Will started the water and Hannibal grabbed up the champagne glasses. Hannibal put in the lavender bubble bath and Will folded their towels as Hannibal would want them waiting when they finished.

They drank more mimosas and chuckled when Will childishly put foam on Hannibal as a beard and only stopped grinning when Will kissed at it until his mouth was on Hannibal's and his tongue was licking champagne from his teeth.Then they touched and made love as the bath water grew tepid. Will gripped the edges of the hotel bath as the water sloshed against the sides every time he sat himself back down on Hannibal. He rode him in the water and sloppy wet kisses found any bit of each other's skin they could.

Spent and tingling after the warm bath, Hannibal finally tended to Will's cut feet with the hotel's bathroom first aid kit--of which he had decided that the hobbling Will would be doing both due to the cuts and the previous night's liaisons would be amusing enough payment for bleeding on the bed. They then both dressed and Will borrowed a sweater that sat a bit too large on the shoulders but otherwise fit fine.

With every moment spent like this the idea of them working stopped seeming so far fetched. It was disgustingly domestic, but unlike his previous life there was a dark understanding simmering below every action. Their scars spoke of the danger they put themselves in just by being close and having someone understand every facet of his darkness and welcome it was refreshing.

"You are going to turn me into a fat couch potato at this rate." Will said as he stared accusingly at Hannibal over the local Sugarloaf Daily in his hand. They been lounging in the penthouse all day like useless lumps and it was so unlike Hannibal to not be rushing off to appointments or insisting on making themselves productive. Hell, he hadn't even called in room service to clean up the shards of glass and sticky residue of wine in the living room. The room stayed stuffy and preserved like a museum display showcasing what had transpired the night before.

"How you react to our current situation is wholly on you." Hannibal replied with a small smirk as he flipped through his tablet computer on the armchair near the couch. "Though if you are not content feel free to go about your day. I'm not your keeper."

At that Will scoffed. "Damn right you're not. But I don't think going into downtown Sugarloaf is a good idea right now, being a social pariah and all." Molly's shop was downtown as well and knowing her she would have dragged herself there in her stubborn refusal to ever take a day off, no matter if it was laryngitis or a lying, cheating ex-fiance. Will sank down onto the couch groaning and let the paper flop down to cover his face. "I'm going to have to go to the house and pick up my clothing. I didn't even think about the dogs either..."

"Molly will need the dogs now more than ever to provide the stability you've forsaken her." Hannibal pushed his reading glasses up into his hair and then grabbed the turkish coffee he'd brewed a few minutes before. "Go, I will still be here."

Except half of Will wasn't so sure he would be. Like an apparition Hannibal was going to disappear into the wind and leave Will smashed all over again with no way of picking up the pieces. It just felt too unreal that the last twenty-four hours had happened.

"And then what?" Will pulled the newspaper away and stared. "This isn't just a one night fuck, is it? If you say it is Hannibal I swear to god..."

Hannibal's translucent brows pulled up in surprise and he finally put the tablet aside. That got his attention then. "Casual sex was never my objective," Hannibal seemed to taste each word and weigh them, "I don't see the point in giving my time towards a cause with no end. The opportunity costs are too high."

"So it's sheer economics then?" Will paused when he further considered the words and rolled onto his side, letting his arm hang down to brush his knuckles against the floor. "Does that mean you see an end to this?"

"I do. With us fixing past errors and living the way we had intended to. Does that sound like an agreeable end to you?" 

Hannibal reached for his coffee and took a long sip. The afternoon Florida sun that shone through the wide panorama windows smoothed out his features and made him look younger and peaceful. The skin showing at the collar of his unbuttoned shirt appeared all the warmer, if Will was so inclined to touch it. Hannibal embodied agreeable in that moment. He was offering this... this life to Will once again and this time there was no FBI or Jack, or even now Molly to make him reconsider.

"It does." A smile crept onto Will's features as Hannibal's shoulders relaxed an inch and Will then knew how anxious he had really been for that answer. 

The wedding was a good as dead, Jillian's colour schemes be damned. Will would have to say goodbye to kitsch salt and pepper shakers and the greying wooden house he had called home with the women in it that he had almost called wife. In exchange though he would be gifted Hannibal and all the dangers and adventures that that entailed.

Years ago while studying at the academy there was an aside that had stuck with him. It had been inside a thick book on ethics discussing similar opportunity costs to what Hannibal had mentioned in connection with the reasoning behind high risk high reward crimes. It came from a Persian story and had been summarized--to the best of Will's memory--as having a princess and a beggar, and a djinn. The beggar set the djinn free from a bottle, and was rewarded with a wish; but the wish came with conditions. The man may live in ordinary comfort for seventy years; or he may live in pleasure--with a princess for a wife, and servants to bathe him, and robes of gold--for five hundred days.’ 

At the end it then posed the question, ‘Which would you choose, if you were that beggar?” And there was a lengthy discussion about risk, reward, and instant gratification below but Will had ignored that and sat there thinking. He would have chosen the comfort. What good was a short life when there was a life that was easy and comfortable that gave the beggar years and years to be content?

Now though, with Hannibal as the djinn offering up a life of pleasure that promised nothing but the present day, no matter for how long or how crazy it seemed, Will knew what his answer was. It would be to live in true and complete pleasure.

Will rose from the couch with as much grace as he could and slunk over to where Hannibal sat with his coffee. "It sounds very, very agreeable, Hannibal." His nails racked back silvering hair and then he leaned down to press a kiss against Hannibal's thin lips.

"What is the plan then?"

His fingers grabbed at the soft lobs of Hannibal's ears and pressed down. Then they moved up to stroke along the shells before he laid another kiss to each sides of Hannibal's temple. It was unhurried and sweet.

Hannibal's arms encircled around his waist and his hands that were hot from the now forgotten turkish coffee traced along the knobs of his spine. "You will take the rest of the day to gather what you need or, if you prefer, to buy what you require. You will meet me at Sugarloaf Station, at their bar, where I will come with the fake papers I will have acquired during your absence. You will rent a car under your fake name and we will drive it down to El Paso."

Will encouraged him with a small hum as he pressed a few more kisses lower now on Hannibal's chin where there was a bit of scruff. Down to El Paso? Excitement bubbled away in Will's stomach. He had never been to Texas before.

"In El Paso we will abandon the car and take a bus to the Chihuahua Airport. The security is rather relaxed in such a small airport. We will then book one way tickets to Florence, or Paris... wherever you prefer."

"Florence." Will eagerly decided. He wanted Florence. Will pressed his knee to the chair and then the other until he was kneeling over Hannibal. The hands along his back moved back around to his front and crawled up until they found a nipple. 

Hannibal glowed under him at his decision. "We will meet at seven sharp then and I will take the first shift. We will drive through the night." 

Will's legs tightened around Hannibal at the thought of being at the wheel with shitty McDonalds coffee stuffed into the cupholder beside a frankenstein cup of coffee with a slew of letters giving directions to the prep staff to make Hannibal's coffee as close to perfect as McDonalds could come. Will imagined sleeping in Hannibal's car as he once had with the rumble of the engine surrounding him and the buzz of the A/C lulling him to sleep with the wonderful feeling of getting to sleep while someone else must stay awake and watch over you. Perhaps when he drove Hannibal would sleep and Will could press his hair back and wake him up in Louisiana with his favourite Cajun comfort food.

"Mmm, then let's not delay." Will pulled back and went to pry himself from around Hannibal when instead he found Hannibal pulling him back down to smell coffee on his lips and then immediately after to taste it. 

Hannibal kissed him for a moment longer before running his thumb along Will's cheek. He was unreadable again. If Will had to pin the look down it seemed a little forlorn. "I do love you Will, do not forget that." He whispered against Will before allowing him the space to move again. With constant reminding he was likely to have it branded across his brain. 

"You're embarrassing." He concluded for the second time that day.

_______

The cheap train station whiskey threatened to burn a hole in Will's esophagus as it scorched its way down his throat. The only other people at the Sugarloaf Station bar at six-forty-five on a Tuesday were drunkards and lonely drifters waiting for a train. For once Will wasn't at a bar in a similar sad state. This time his hair was freshly cut short and styled, his new shirt had a stiff collar and still had the smell of the store stuck on it, and beside him was a duffle bag containing what he couldn't build a new life without.

It was hard to have to break into his own house and say goodbye to the dogs. Molly had gone to work as Will had assumed, so Will took out a rotisserie chicken he'd bought and shredded pieces for each of his mutts. It was a goodbye chicken and it was likely that the dogs understood something was up because they all ate it quietly and nudged at Wills calves for more affection every time he went to grab something else to stuff in his bag.

He kept it simple; the photos of Abigail, a dog bobble head Alana bought him for his birthday, a few of his favourite lures, some well worn-in clothes he had loved for years, and a pocket watch that belonged to his grandfather. Everything else in his life was either replaceable or not important. He was finally shedding his cocoon and all the other unnecessary casing in his life. Just before he finished packing he grabbed a photo of he and Molly that had been smashed to the floor. They were on a camping trip and were both wearing hip-weighers as Molly held up her first catch between them. His fingers idly stroked over her features. 

He really was a horrid person for taking the photo too as if he had a right to it after all he'd done.

On the countertop he left his bankcards with the pins, addresses of people who he knew would take a dog if she couldn't handle them all, and a note that signed over the house legally to Molly. It was the least he could do for destroying her life. Hopefully she'd sell the shack and use his savings to go buy a nice little apartment by her parents near a dog park with kind, dog-loving men there every morning and after work. They would be willing to try hot yoga with her and would be just as patient with her weekly breast exams. They'd fuck her better than Will ever could and love her with more than Will could muster on his best days. These faceless men would care for her, marry her, give her a family and slowly ease the dark shadows out of Molly that Will had put there.

Beside what Will left for Molly he also placed a note.

'Dear Molly, 

I will not lie to you again. I am leaving with Hannibal and will not be returning. I cannot apologize enough for dragging you into this. If I could go back and make it so that a better guy was watching you at the marina that day, I would in a heartbeat. You deserve the world and deserve someone who will give you it.

I wish you all the luck possible,

Will'

With a few long hugs with his dogs and an especially long, slightly tearful, hug with Winston he bid the ramshackle house a final goodbye.

Remembering the last sight of the house turned the whiskey bitter as Will took another sip to finish the glass.

"Another?" The old bartender asked. Once Will nodded he filled up another and slid it towards him. What was done was done and it didn't matter if some objective third person looking in called him cold or a coward, he was running away to something he needed.

There was no telling what this new adventure with Hannibal would bring but if Will had his way they would buy a Tuscan villa with a winery on the grounds and a river with fish nearby. They'd spend their weekends in Florence drinking coffee in Piazza San Croce as Hannibal finished up his sketches of the jade and white duomo. A spaniel or collie, something lively but sensible, would lay across Will's Italian leather shoes but not dare to try his luck across Hannibal's. They'd cling to the edge of Ponte Vecchio to get a view of the mountains spotted with white villas, they'd climb up to Piazzale Michelangiolo with the tourists talking ridiculous pictures with those god awful selfie sticks, and buy cheap Fanta from the tired looking metal shops overlooking Florence from the lookout. Hannibal would maybe later buy fresh and white balls of buffalo mozzarella floating in brine, oil-drenched sun-dried tomatoes with the taste of summer still hidden inside, and salty, shaved porchetta from the butcher who got his pigs from some medieval cliffside village. He'd buy all this just to make Will pizza. Then they'd eat and drink Chianti and then fuck for hours no matter how full they were.

It wasn't just some foolish daydream he had to silence and push away anymore in favour of the dark reality he was constantly being dragged into. He'd spent so many months learning how to navigate (see: avoid) the murky waters of his complex, grey feelings for Hannibal that allowing his mind the space to breathe and believe felt odd. It was like the images he tried to repress now had a life of their own and an insistent stubbornness on being seen, over and over again like a movie on repeat. Except Will wasn't getting tired of the same plot line or scenes. He welcomed it.

More, less flamboyant, ideas of life with Hannibal played through Will's mind as he sipped away at the whiskey. By the time he noticed the empty glass, his watch told him it was seven o' five. So much for seven sharp.

He got a beer this time and then pulled out his phone from his pocket to check the news. It was a bad habit to break after always scouring the news for some sign or signal of Hannibal. Shit, he was doing it again.

With a grunt Will stuffed the phone back in his pocket and let his hands toy with the sweating bottle nervously.

He'd been in Sugarloaf for a while now and no one recognized him. Even though it was rather "rude", Hannibal was only human and it was normal to be a few minutes late. There was traffic, lines, and endless other time-sucking aspects of life that handled time poorly at best.

Will look a long sip of his beer and looked over his shoulder at the old bearded man chugging a Corona. He watched him finish up the bottle, pay, and then leave to go get a train. Announcements called out for departing trains on platform whatever and delays, delays, delays. So many delays.

The same monotone voice punctuated Will's nervous brooding. The A13 was delayed five minutes. The M400 overnight international line to Toronto was delayed three hours. J9 to New Orleans delayed twelve minutes. Would the owner of a blue Mazda license plate "GREWVY" come to the help desk? I80 to Atlanta was delayed thirty minutes. 

With every new announcement, Will grew more anxious. It was seven-forty-five. Will checked his watch for the third time in the past five minutes.

Something had to have happened. Hannibal was almost an hour late and with anyone else Will would be annoyed but understanding, but with Hannibal it seemed wrong. There was something fundamentally wrong with this, some concrete rule of the universe as unbreakable as gravity was being broken here.

Will launched all the news browsers in his phone. He ordered another beer no matter how the bitter, barley claws were beginning to sink into his brain and make him sweat and worry even more. First he looked at the New York Times page and scanned the front pages about a bombing in Syria and stabbing in Miami. He did a quick search for the phrase "Hannibal Lecter". All that came up were the old articles that made him power down the phone momentarily. He didn't want to look at photos of Alana and Abigail smiling beside a caption describing their deaths. Will wanted to see the articles about himself even less.

He checked all the main newspapers and then started to delve into the tabloids like tattlecrime.com. Nothing. Absolutely nothing about Hannibal being spotted, captured, or the like.

It was eight thirty.

"Another beer." Will barked at the bartender who had been eyeing him for a past few minutes.

"This is your last one I'm cutting you off for a bit. I can spot a nervous drinker a mile away." The man continued to spin a cup in his hand and polish off the rim with a raggedy towel. He still went and got Will a beer and popped the cap off then slid it his way. The beer tasted like water after so many but it just made it easier to drink without thinking about the taste.

There was a thought brewing in his head that Will didn't want to acknowledge. There was the distinct possibility that Hannibal wasn't late, that instead his lateness was on purpose and that Will was meant to sit in the station like an idiot waiting for a life that was never coming. 

He couldn't think of that though. Not yet. He had to trust Hannibal no matter how hard the passing minutes made it. After all he'd given up there was no other choice but to.

As Will sipped away at the beer he looked over his shoulder at the door to the bar. He watched the people come and go to and from their trains. There were families with the father carting Disney-themed suitcases for his children all wearing mouse ear hats, there were business women walking in stilettos with huge designer suitcases being pulled like they were nothing, but there were a lot of retirees as was common. A lot of damn Canadians too with their obnoxious Canadian flag bag tags and patches insisting to anyone looking that no, they were in fact not Americans and that they put their flag on their bags in some hope that it would win them brownie points in their travels. There were a lot of Canadian retirees Will noted.

Then there was a man who moved past the groups with a tailored jacket hugging his body and one small suitcase trailing behind him. His hair was ashen blond and his build was big but not imposing. He paused with his back to the bar's door and stared up at the arrival and departure board with the yellow letters flicking and crawling their way up the board.

It was Hannibal. The sourness in Will's stomach disappeared immediately and he slammed the beer down. His duffle bag on the floor was forgotten in favour of half running, half hobbling towards the door.

"Hey! Pay your damn tab! Don't you dare run out of this place without paying!" The bartender shouted after Will as he swung open the door and let the yelling fall on deaf ears. He just needed to see Hannibal's face and get the hell out of this train station. The rent-a-car booths were all down the hall and Will felt a giddiness in his stomach as he rounded on Hannibal intent on half dragging him like an impatient child towards them and to their life. He would berate him later when they were in the car and with Sugarloaf far back in their rearview mirror.

"Hannibal where were y--"

"Pardon?" Green eyes stared down at him in confusion, and a man who certainly was not Hannibal--his features far too soft and his stubble with flecks of red in it--stared down at him. "Can I help you?"

"Get your ass back here or I'm calling security!" The bartender shouted from the bar door and Will felt the giddiness get sucked out of him and his stomach dropped down to his shoes. That wasn't Hannibal at all. Shit. Now he looked like an idiot standing there gaping at a stranger like a child lost at a grocery store who grabbed onto the wrong woman's hand and called her "mommy". He had the same fear in his stomach as when his mother had left him in a Wallgreens and gone out to smoke without looking for him playing amongst the aisles. That same childish worry that not only had you been left behind, but that you had been forgotten on purpose, that his mother grew bored of him and decided to leave him to live alone in Wallgreens forever. The world instantly seemed impossibly large without someone to care for him, and the quick glimpse of the loneliness of adulthood had broken Will. He'd cried all the way to the cashier. 

"No, sorry. I thought you were someone else."

Will turned away from the man and walked back towards the bar with his head hung low. He apologized to the bartender half-heartedly and then fished into his wallet for the wad of bills he had kept for the trip and crumpled more than his tab and lobbed them at the bar top. "That should about cover it." 

It was nine twenty.

"Fuck!" Will's foot smashed into some of the trashcans, denting the side of it as he growled. An old man waiting for a train scowled at him and it took everything in Will not to scream at him as well, but that would only be cathartic for a moment and would get him thrown out. Despite the alcohol in his system begging to pick up the empty bottle near the bench and smash it or break someone's nose, Will's sobering anxiety kept him sane enough not to. He had to calm down.

Will moved towards one of the benches facing the rows of trains with a view of the bar and then jammed his coat under his head angrily. His new haircut was jostled out of the light gel and a few curls fell into his eyes. 

The world seemed too large, the train station too empty despite the people all running to catch their trains and meet up with loved ones. He had to consider the possibility that there was no one coming for him. Will was a good fisherman and the idea of being reeled in himself was too much. Not after everything they'd been put through to get where they were. Hannibal had agreed years before to omissions instead of flat out lies. It was beneath Hannibal to sit there and lie to Will's face like he was Jack or Alana. They had moved beyond that at least, hadn't they?

And yet Will pulled the browsers up again and did another check. Will knew in the gut of his stomach that there would be nothing there but he still used the station's WIFI to go online and check. 

Just as he'd thought.

Will's finger lazily trailed through his cellphone, his and Molly's old home phone as well since Molly's brick of a Nokia was too old to properly function. With the thought blindsiding him, Will grumbled and stuffed his phone back into his pocket.

The cold of the bench soon warmed and the crick in his neck faded from his mind as sleep took him, albeit briefly.

He could see Hannibal clearly, standing there with his now sunny complexion and hand outstretched waiting for Will to take hold. Will reached out to grab for it but found it turning to mist that slipped through his fingers. The white misty hand reached up for his face to stroke along his cheek. It was cold.

"Wake up."

Hannibal's hands moved to run over his shoulder and the world shook back and forth.

"You can't sleep here buddy."

"H...Hannibal?"

"Who?"

Will opened his eyes to find an old security guard standing in front of him. He had crumbs over his uniform, greying black hair, and a taser lodged into a side pouch of his belt. The man pulled his hand away from Will's shoulder and reached with his other hand to take a bite of the croissant. "I'm station security and it's almost midnight. We're not a hotel, so go get one nearby and come back for your train tomorrow morning, alright?"

Shit. Will bolted up, nearly knocking against the guard and he reached up to completely break his haircut from its hold to grasp at the roots of his hair. "Midnight?" He asked blearily, it was like the vertigo from the night before had finally caught up as Will struggled to understand where the hell he was.

The station, he was at the station and....

A chill seized his insides, the electric and intense warning in his body that something was very wrong. And it was; Hannibal hadn't come. He would have seen him laying on the bench, there was no way he'd missed him.

He'd left him there. He wasn't coming.

"Look, I don't have all day to stand here and babysit you. You gotta' get going." The guard went to reach for Will's arm to help him up but Will snapped his body away from the touch and stood up. 

The duffle bag with the remnants of his life was slung over his shoulder and wordlessly Will started for the bar, everything blurring away in a headache and entering auto pilot. 

He had to accept the fact that Hannibal wasn't coming, had never had planned to.

Will felt numb as he pulled at the door to the bar and then pulled on it a few more times to make sure it wasn't the alcohol fucking up his motor skills but still felt it stay put. They had closed down for the night. Such a small station didn't have the resources to run twenty four seven. Somewhere inside the bartender was washing the last few dishes. So instead Will turned and walked to the small stand selling bags of potato chips, newspapers, and Red Bull and grabbed a box of spearmint gum. 

When he paid for it, Will stared down into his wallet. Those few hundreds were all he had left. He'd given everything to Molly, and there was no way he could leave a note like that and then slither back into Molly's life and snatch up the only consolation he had given her. Even Will couldn't be so heartless. Had Hannibal planned for that too?

This was the few hundred dollars meant to last him a lifetime. At the thought of money, Will realized he hadn't gone to the marina for his shift. He hadn't been going a lot lately. He was probably going to get fired, but if Will was entirely honest if he wasn't fired he probably still wouldn't return. Resuming the life he'd had before and cocooning himself back into the safety of routine and the familiar seemed ridiculous. 

Though it wasn't in Molly's nature to call the cops, maybe Jillian had even convinced her. Even if she didn't, Sugarloaf wouldn't be safe anymore with that invisible threat hanging over Will like a guillotine ready at any moment to drop down. 

Will smiled vacantly down at the wallet before closing his life savings away and seizing the gum from the tired Korean clerk.

Everything was tunnel vision, his entire body in auto drive as he walked towards the exit of the train station as if everything was going to be okay. He passed into the warm Floridan night that smelt of oranges and brine and away from the train station that housed his life with Hannibal. Only when Will stared out at the emptying parking lot did everything come crashing down.

Hannibal was never coming to get him. The reality they had forged together and had been promised him was no more than a farce, a clever and cruel ruse by the cruelest and most clever monster Will had ever met.

Tears stung his eyes but wouldn't fall, he'd grown that much at least since the first time he was left abandoned and was faced with the crushing loneliness that came hand-in-hand with being left to self-sufficiency. Except this time as Will stared out at the parking lot and inhaled sharply to keep himself from falling apart completely he knew he'd let it happen willingly. How could he have been so blind? So lured in by the flashiness of the bait, so ready to bite it no matter how clear it should have been that there was a hook embedded deep into the flash, the touches, and the lies.

He had so readily abandoned Molly, his imperfect but comfortable life for the pleasure and the thrill of being understood and in the company of something truly evil and beautiful. To be able to love Hannibal freely and delude himself for mere hours he'd forsaken his silvering house, his piebald mutts, and woman too kind and pure for Will to ever hope of dirtying again. 

"What have I done?" Will whispered hoarsely, his hands shaking as he let the duffle bag drop to the pavement. The sweet air gave one cold gust and Will held himself close as he stared into the darkness of the night stretching ahead of him.

How had he ever been under the delusion that he was monster? How had he ever imagined that he was a fox, some creature able to dance amongst wolves? Will could see now that he was nothing but a pig, a stupid fucking useless pig. 

Will had rebuilt himself a home from scratch, laboured over it, and he'd let the wolf come in and blow his house, his life, and every foundation that had held him together after Hannibal had ripped him apart, to the ground. 

This was a calculated dismembering of his life, a new, less physical, act of violence wrought upon Will to lance an old wound of Hannibal's. To allow Hannibal the ability to build anew by robbing Will of his ability to ever do so himself--to ever reimagine a life without Hannibal, as Hannibal once had of him. Hannibal built from destruction. God, it was all so fucking clear now.

The worse part? Will finally felt a few tears break to roll down his cheeks. The worst part was that Will knew in the most rotten part of him that he'd do it all again, that he'd let Hannibal seek revenge for his own pain again and destroy their future once more. He'd lean in and grasp at him as he dug a knife into his stomach. He would chase the high of Hannibal's touches only to be left wanting and wasted beside the shambles of his life. He wouldn't fight it, only hold on tighter.

Will wiped his eyes with the back of his jacket and picked his duffle bag up. As he left the station, night swallowed him up with no promise of returning him back to the next day.

He would gladly invite the wolf inside to break him. Again and again and again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I shall now prepare myself for the torches and pitchforks. Eep! I just want you all to know that this was the ending planned from the start and that I don't think I've ever written a happy ending in my life.
> 
> That being said, the tag says bittersweet and I thought this to be as sweet in a very broken Hannigram-esque way. Will does love Hannibal and knows it for sure now. Hannibal got what he wanted but also was not lying when he said he loved Will. He simply favours hurting Will to make himself feel better than allowing Will to crawl into the spot he'd shunned before.
> 
> You guys have been incredible throughout this story. This story is my absolute favourite out of everything I've ever written and it is all thanks to your wonderful comments and encouragements. I want to extend a special thanks to theteacupshatters who has been my beta for the last few chapters. She is A++ the best at pointing out my numerous inconsistencies and her comments on this chapter were especially hilarious.
> 
> I do hope you enjoyed the ride though and I also hope you leave a comment with how this last chapter made you feel... Pitchforks are totally allowed :)
> 
> It feels good to finish a fic for the first time in 5 years.
> 
> Thanks again guys. Come say hi on Tumblr. Much love!

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a prompt done by Hanni-Babe on tumblr. Be sure to also say hello to me at http://dweeby.tumblr.com/.


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